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Great post, would you be willing to write a piece on the insanity that is known as Ken Hovind for my blog http://departmentofduh.quora.com
Chuck - "If the link that Nyarlathotep gave doesn't show the entire videos there could be a lot missing."
Nice try Chuck, they are rips right off his discs, they are not edited.
-----------
Chuck - "to maybe make the point being made to look foolish"
Hovind don't need any help there.
Checked back for over a week now... I'll take Chuck's silence as capitulation to our arguments here. Evolution is not some quackery dreamed up by someone overnight, it is observation through decades of hard work, evidence, research and biological findings. There has even been a pope in favor of the evidence of biological evolution, and the kind of 'evolution' you theists tend to bring up isn't even the same thing we in the intellectual community are talking about.
It's like saying "I drive a Ford, so I know your Chevy sucks because I saw a Dodge the other day." You must compare like to like, not some version of what you wish to decry with actuality, man.
I hope someday you truly see the real world for what it is, Mr. Chuck. Fantasies are comforting, but they are still fantasies... So facing things for what they are generally has a better outcome. There is also no higher being who will punish me for using 'harsh language', except maybe a manager at the workplace, but that's another story altogether. I don't dislike you.
Peace.
The Pragmatic
I know this is a long post, but it can't be explained in a few words.
Also I'm sorry it took so long to post it. I had to type a little here and there,because I've been very busy.
Well first of all, before I realized the truth of Christianity, I was not looking for it to be true. I didn't want it or any other religion to be true. I wanted what "I believed" to be true. That's why I went into the debate with Silas in the first place. I wanted to prove him to be wrong.
Fortunately I found Christianity to be true. When I first really realized God was true, it wasn't that I had this new knowledge about Jesus Christ. I barely new anything about Him. I did realize that what little information Kent Hovind showed from the Bible made sense when you compare it with evidence in nature that gives credence to a young earth.
Let me step aside from my explanation for a moment to give an example of truth that will help in my explanation.
There is absolute truth that is discoverable. But many times man puts his two cents in and mares it up.
Take this for example, dinosaurs absolutely have carbon 14 in them that can be measured. Yet carbon14 can't be measured beyond somewhere around 56,000 years. Yet evolutionists still enter there two cents in and claim that "scientific experiments show dinosaurs to be more than 65 million years old". How can that be if carbon 14 can still be measured in their bones? And there are many more tidbits of evidence that if someone simply uses common sense (not saying you don't have any) will realize that things are not as old as some people claim they are. If people just take the true evidence at hand without injecting their opinion in it based on their world view, they would conclude with the truth "dinosaurs nor the earth are millions of years old or older.
So with that said, I believed that what Kent Hovind showed of the bible and natural things happening supported each other. So I made a choice to believe the Bible.
I can imagine that you may have something to inject here. So I'll say this: we all have the ability to believe what we want to (though many Atheists claim "they don't believe", but they believe what others tell them as if that is something different lol). And there is no law, that can stop someone from believing what they want. Take a average child for example: if someone was to tell the child that they had a piece of candy in their pocket, and that they would give it to that child if the child would believe and ask for that piece of candy he or she could have it, most likely that child woukd believe and ask. Whether it was true or not. Because they would truly believe in their heart the person was telling the truth. There is no law that can stop that child from believing that. And the Bible says:
Luke 18:17 KJV
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.
God designed it that way, that you simply have to believe, or in other words, have faith!
I used to think I knew so much before I got saved. Then when I did get saved I realized there was so much that I didn't know. I had to look at everything from a new perspective. A child like perspective. As if learning the real truth from the beginning. From the heart that is open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The more someone who has gotten saved starts feeding themselves with God's word and taking in what preachers are preaching, the faster you grow spiritually.
You see though I didn't know this when I was first saved, but the biggest difference between true Christianity and false religions are works. You see getting saved is by Jesus Christ + nothing, - nothing period. Christian salvation does not require works to get to Heaven. All other religions do, including false Christian religions. Like Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses. If you research each one true Christianity is the only one that requires no works to get saved, but we work because we are saved. According to false religions their converts have to do some kind of work in order to get to Heaven. Like Muslims have to go to Meca at least once. Among other things.
The day I was saved, if I died before I did anything of a work, I still would have been in Heaven. Other false religions are also based on pleasing the flesh. If not in this life, then in the next. Some claim that their male converts will have many females in Heaven to have sex, and some to have many spiritual baybies with. I wonder how the women feel about that. Real Christians don't have to rely on feelings either, though there are feelings we don't rely on them, we rely on the Holy Ghost to direct us. Even though sometimes we fail because we still have our flesh to contend with. Thankfully God is very forgiving, because He knows what we are made of. Before I was saved, though I was fooled into believing evolution to be true, I think it would have been much harder for me to have accepted just any God based religion because I was so much against any type of God. Yet the one and only true God was willing to draw me to Him, again because He knows what I'm made of. And He knows I was deceived and that I would give Him all my heart, just as He requires. Not because I was worthy, but because He loves me.
Jeremiah 29:13 KJV
And ye shall seek me, and find me , when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
Many people seek a God that will please the flesh. The true God doesn't like the flesh. Because the flesh is against God and your own spirit. That is the reason why there are so many people that are on drugs or alcoholics. Because their flesh wants what it wants even though they know what they are doing is killing them. But the flesh doesn't care again because it wants what it wants. But Jesus can take people away from those desires. He is amazing
I needed to add this. When Jesus was drawing me to Him it was very much real. So much that I didn't need to question it there's no way for a false religion to do what He did.
Ken hovind is a liar a cheat and a criminal.
Carbon 14 is absofrigginlutely not used to date millions of years old fossils. We would not use a dating method we know is not accurate past around 50k years. You have been told about all the different dating methods Chuck. Even I remember that and I barely remember yesterday!!
Oh and the fact that Ken believes the world is 10k years old yet carbon 14 has dated accurately way further back than 10k years does not make you think at all?
Creatards and their fancy dress friends (id) are desperately trying to confuse and mislead people using irrelevent data and trying to discredit all dating methods because all of them destroy their myth.
One last thing you do know id is just creationism with added lies as a result of creationism being banned from public science for NOT BEING SCIENTIFIC.
There are two very famous court cases (by Christian judges) that proved that beyond a doubt to anyone with half a brain. One in 1987 and one in 2005. Ten years ago id was destroyed but fanatics can never accept defeat.
Lmale buddy, you just don't get it. Whether they use carbon 14 for dating or not is besides the point. If the bones were more than say 60,000 years old the carbon 14 would NOT be measurable. But yet all the bones still have carbon 14 in them that can be measured. Therefore they are less than your millions of years. DO YOU GET IT YET? It is measurable therefore not as old as you and others claim.
No you dont get it. Ken hovind is a criminal and a con artist thus trusting a single thing he says is stupid.
THEY LIED!!! THEY DID NOT FOLLOW CORRECT PROCEDURES TO AVOID CONTAMINATION. THEY COMMITTED FRAUD TO ONBTAIN SAMPLES THEY WERE TOLD WERE CONTAMINATED.
No credible scientists have detected c14 in dinosaur bones.
There is a lot of discussion about this issue on this internet, so I think this question may be worth addressing seriously. The main point of the debate seems to be the following:
Over the past decades, several research groups of self-proclaimed creationist scientists have claimed discoveries of dinosaur bones that they have managed to date, using radiocarbon dating methods, at some age which is a lot below the 'usual' i.e. mainstream accepted date for the age of these bones (several dozens of million years old). The age that these groups claim to find is usually on the order of thousands or tens of thousands of years old.
The research by Miller et al.
The claims by these creationist research groups are quite spectacular; they deserve to be seriously looked into. Let us investigate the specific case referenced in the question: A research team from the CRSEF, or Creation Research, Science Education Foundation, led by Hugh Miller, has claimed to have dated dinosaur bones using radiocarbon methods, determining them to be no older than several dozens of thousands of years old. Let's look at their research methodology in detail (indicated by bullet points):
As it turns out, Miller's research group obtained their sample in quite a remarkable way. In fact, the creationist posed as chemists in order to secure a number of fragments of fossilized dinosaur bone from a museum of natural history, misrepresenting their own research in the process of doing so.
When the museum provided the bone fragments, they emphasized that they had been heavily contaminated with "shellac" and other chemical preservatives. Miller and his group accepted the samples and reassured the museum that such containments would not be problematic for the analysis at hand. They then sent it to a laboratory run by the University of Arizona, where radiocarbon dating could be carried out. To get the scientists to consider their sample, the researchers once again pretended to be interested in the dating for general chemical analysis purposes, misrepresenting their research.
Let's quickly stop to consider the general issue of misrepresenting your own research. It is understandable that Miller et al. did this, since there would have been a slim chance (at best) of the museum curator providing them with any dinosaur bone fragments if he or she had known what the true intent of the supposed chemists was. In particular, it is implausible that it would have been considered worthwhile to try to use radiocarbon dating methods on these bones, since the rocks that they were taken from were determined to be 99+ million years old, as shown in this paper by Kowallis et al. Now, it is known that 14C decays at a fast enough rate (half-life ~6000 years) for this dating method to be absolutely useless on such samples. Thus, it appears that Miller et al. would not have been able to obtain this sample, had they been honest about their intent. This, of course, raises some ethical questions, but let's brush these aside for now. We proceed with the examination of the research done by Miller and his fellow researchers from the CRSEF.
What exactly are we dating here? Sample contamination and general trustworthyness
After the samples were submitted by the laboratory, Miller et al. were informed by a professor from the University of Arizona that the samples were heavily contaminated, and that no collagen (where most of the carbon for 14C dating comes from) was present. Miller let assured the professor that the analysis was still of interest to the group. The issue of contaminations is quite a serious one, as can be seen in this paper by Hedges and Gowlett (sorry, paywalled!!!). I quote (quote also reproduced in the paper by Lepper that I linked earlier:
At a horizon of 40,000 years the amount of carbon 14 in a bone or a piece of charcoal can be truly minute: such a specimen may contain only a few thousand 14C atoms. Consequently equally small quantities of modern carbon can severely skew the measurements. Contamination of this kind amounting to 1 percent of the carbon in a sample 25,000 years old would make it appear to be about 1,500 years younger than its actual age. Such contamination would, however, reduce the apparent age of a 60,000-year-old object by almost 50 percent. Clearly proper sample decontamination procedures are of particular importance in the dating of very old artifacts
It is clear that the sample provided by Miller did not under go any 'sample decontamination procedures' at all, and it is therefore strongly questionable to which extent it can be used to obtain a good estimate of the age of the bones. Furthermore, it appears less than certain that the carbon found in the bones actually had anything to do with them being dinosaur bones. In the article by Leppert, we find:
Hugh Miller generously provided me with a copy of the elemental analysis of one of their dinosaur fossils. Daniel Fisher of the University of Michigan’s Museum of Paleontology examined these results and concludes that there is nothing whatsoever extraordinary about them. The predominant suite of elements present and their relative percentages (including the 3.4% carbon!) are about what one would expect to find in hydroxyapatite and calcite, two of the commonest minerals present in ordinary dinosaur fossils. There is absolutely nothing unusual about these fossils and no reason to think the carbon contained in them is organic carbon derived from the original dinosaur bone.
Robert Kalin senior research specialist at the University of Arizona’s radiocarbon dating laboratory, performed a standard independent analysis of the specimens submitted by Hugh Miller and concluded that the samples identified as “bones” did not contain any collagen. They were, in fact, not bone.
These results corroborated established paleontological theories that assert that these fossiles presumably were 'washed away' over long periods of time by ground water, replacing the original bones with other substances such as the minerals naturally present in the water, implying that this sample could not tell you anything about when a dinosaur lived (or rather, died).
Conclusions
At this point, it is quite clear that there is little reason to trust the research by Miller's research group. In fact, the article by Leppert raises a number of additional issues (e.g. Miller's group refuses to reveal where some other samples of theirs were dated), but I think it is pointless to argue further: It is obvious that the CRSEF research group did a poor job in sticking to the scientific method, and that little objective value can be assigned to their supposed findings.
Lmale evolutionists used carbon 14 several times to try and claim the dates of dinosaurs bones. Now you claim that it wasn't even in them. Any lie to support your claim right?
*Fossils, they are no longer bones.
Hence why there is NO Carbon-14 present in dinosaur 'bones'. Same with dinosaur-age shells, rocks, trees, etc.
It's bad to argue against science-minded folk with pseudoscience, Chuck.
Lmale buddy, you just don't get it. Whether they use carbon 14 for dating or not is besides the point. If the bones were more than say 60,000 years old the carbon 14 would NOT be measurable. But yet all the bones still have carbon 14 in them that can be measured. Therefore they are less than your millions of years. DO YOU GET IT YET? It is measurable therefore not as old as you and others claim.
Peat, oil, and certain other compounds take millions of years, if not tens of thousands of years to form.
That alone is simple proof (yes, proof) that the bible's estimation of the age of the Earth is off by about 100% at the very least.
No they don't. Oil, and coal have been made in a lab in a very short time.
So because something can be produced quickly in the lab, therefore nature must produce it quickly also? Shitty logic is shitty.
Wow... Your ignorance knows no bounds, Chuck.
You must also believe that the moon is surely made of cheese, UFO's killed president Kennedy and all manner of nonsense... I honestly wouldn't put it past you... so I'm not exactly sure why I try convincing you of anything.
I do, however demand an answer to the question I've posed to you over and over.... WHY are you on a site for Atheists, intellectuals and free-thinkers, when you're not an atheist, and rather willingly (it would seem) not part of the intellectual community?
I agree completely Lmale, I tried watching Ken Hovind's crap because of this, and I couldn't stop laughing. His arguments are exactly like someone saying "Einstein's theory of relativity proves nothing about evolution!" ....Just because that statement is true does not make either Einstein's theory nor Evolution any less true....
But to the simple-minded who draw conclusions related to their religions, it would look like absolute proof that 'science lied' simply because they failed to look at anything that actually compares to reality.
It would not surprise me in the least if the OP actually believed in ESP, UFO's and so on. He seems awfully gullible.
And yet again, he circumvented my end of the debate and is not just defending his cult favorite against your very well-placed arguments.
Best of luck with this clown, Lmale! I am highly amused that he seems to have the inability to read your words for what they are lol.
....Lastly, this is the danger of pseudoscience. The ignorant (like our favorite OP) believe anything quack "scientists" come up with. Scary, huh?
Lmale - "You have been told about all the different dating methods Chuck. Even I remember that and I barely remember yesterday!!"
I've noticed this 'trait' in other creationist. I've always wanted to find a term to describe it. Something like "volatile creationist memory" or something. Where they make a terrible error, you spend a huge amount of time, explaining the error in detail to them and they seem to get it. Then the next day they say the same exact shit as if yesterday never happened. It is almost like they have the lies of religion hard wired in, and any information they come across that contradicts that hard wiring gets purged quickly (like how the data stored in a computers memory gets purged when you turn it off, and it reverts back to what is stored on the drive).
Some beliefs are stored on two-thousand year-old write protected floppies.
@Chuck
Thank you for replying.
As you have a crowd of fans eager to talk to you, I'll reply directly on the main thread.
My reply will probably take a few days. I'm getting forcibly dragged to the beach today (potentially lethal for a computer nerd like me).
@Chuck
Answer to: http://www.atheistrepublic.com/comment/25763
Hi.
Thank you again for taking the time to reply.
I'm intentionally avoiding to get into the controversy around Kent Hovind and the discussions about specific proofs. Both because those are entire subjects by themselves and would be better discussed in separate threads, but also because when such things are debated, people tend to invest a large amount of pride into the debate. Once pride is mixed in, it gets even harder than it already is to conduct an intellectually honest debate. Even more so in this thread, since it already has a high degree of invested pride and bitter comments.
Moving on...
----------
Here are a couple of recent quotes from you:
"information Kent Hovind showed from the Bible made sense when you compare it with evidence in nature"
"If people just take the true evidence at hand without injecting their opinion in it based on their world view ..."
I really like how you talk about finding truth, comparing evidence, avoiding bias. You seem to celebrate that people should go and find the answers, not just be content with getting them from a single source that might be misleading. To me, this sounds like someone who wants intellectual honesty.
I like to encourage this in people, because those are very good traits to have.
It is puzzling for me though, how someone who speaks like this seems absolutely sure about knowing the truth:
"Let me step aside from my explanation for a moment to give an example of truth ..."
"There is absolute truth that is discoverable".
Speaking for myself, there are not many things I can say that I am 100% sure of. I can be confident to a certain degree, in some cases a very high degree, but 100%?
I don't want to get into an endless debate of the actual meaning of the words "believe" or "faith". So, I'll just try to explain what I mean when I say "to believe" in something, or "to have faith" in something.
I use the word "faith" mostly as "belief without proof", as in "take it on faith".
I use the word "believe" mostly as "belief based on proof", but not with absolute proof since that wouldn't be believing in any sense of the word. That would only be "knowing" without any belief involved.
Believing in something based on proof, requires it to be falsifiable. Because if it's not falsifiable, evidence is not relevant.
"So I made a choice to believe the Bible."
I don't think one can directly choose to believe, that is out of our control.
Example:
If your told you will get $10000 if you sincerely believe that a pink, flying unicorn is outside your window right now, you can't will yourself into believing that.
However, I think you can to some extent choose how you view available evidence, and by that process have indirect control over what you believe in.
So from my perspective, your statement would be more accurately stated: "So I made a choice trust all the evidence against my previous beliefs and instead trust the Bible."
----------
What I'm trying to understand is still an open question for me:
How does one go from Atheist to a particular religion (and denomination)?
I get that you watched the Creation Seminar videos and became convinced that there was valid evidence against evolution and an old Earth. What I don't get is this: Evidence that evolution is false and the Earth is young, doesn't automatically lead to Christianity.
A person could just as well believe that evolution is false and the Earth is young and remain atheist. Or they could adhere to a generic form of deism, or any of a number of other religions.
I'll try to explain how I'm thinking.
The Creation Seminar videos did two things:
- Showed you what you consider to be convincing evidence against evolution and an old Earth.
- Referred the the Christian Bible over and over, as the only alternative to answer those questions.
First the answers to some questions was removed, creating holes. Then new answers were provided, that filled those holes. But this was done without allowing other alternatives to be part of the available choices.
The videos did of course not say any of the following:
- "It's all right to just accept that the answers are unknown."
- "Islam is the one true religion, and Allah is the one true god and our all mighty creator."
- "Only Ahura Mazda is worthy of the highest worship and the destructive spirit Angra Mainyu conceived of creation to create death."
Instead it was continuously stated that the bible alone, was the only source of real answers.
So my question, in a perhaps more refined version would be:
Excluding your conviction against evolution and an old Earth, what was it that gave you the feeling as you said:
"by the end of the video I realized that it was very probable that God exists."
(I assume that "God" referred to the god of Christianity)
Or perhaps a better way to ask, is to turn it around:
If the Creation Seminar videos was not given to you specifically by a proselytizing Christian and contained ONLY the arguments against evolution and an old Earth without any specific replacement answers. What would it then have been, that would lead you to believe that Christianity is the one true religion?
The Pragmatic
Sorry I've not been back on the site for a while.
As I mentioned before, I have been very busy. First my boss was on vacation, in which I filled his position. Then a couple days after he returned his mother passed away and I was back in that position again. Total of about 5 weeks. Then the issues I had with my phone. I would say you probably know how some companies can give you the run around. When I finally received my new phone, there were software issues after I upgraded to the most recent version.
Job 14:1 says
Man that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
My phone is finally taken care of and I'm back to my regular schedule at work. So II'll go through your questions and answer them as quickly as I can.
One thing I would like to say now is:
You made reference that, you to some degree CHOOSE HOW YOU VIEW some evidence.
That is a point I have been trying to point out to most everyone on this site. For the most part it is according to your world view as to what you choose to believe.
No problem.
Take your time, I was just checking.
To respond to your point:
I don't think we can directly choose what we believe. Only that we to some extent can influence how we view available evidence, and by that process have some indirect control over what we believe in.
You can choose worldview and interpretation of evidence, however that does not make certain things untrue.
You can believe gravity is a myth, for instance, but 10/10 times a bowling ball will still hurt your foot if you let go of it because.... Gravity happens to be there, whether you 'believe' in it or not.
I tried religion before, but something profound stopped me from even trying. Religious zealots plug their ears, listen to no-one, view others with pity and condescending 'holier-than-thou' ideas... Scientists do not. We view people without pity, without ears plugged, without 'smarter than thou' mentality, rather we see other people as having varying degrees of reason.
Unreasonable claims without reasonable evidence is not only falsifiable, it is biased and silly.
I keep saying it, over and over. I have doubts that you actually believe in your religion, otherwise you'd be sharing and caring on a christian website, RATHER than hanging out in an atheist, non-believer, skeptical website.
Come to our side, we have free will, lack of indoctrination and cookies galore.
Consider this.
You can pray, and pray, and pray, and pray to your 'god' to give you the answer to a calculus equation in order for you to pass a test. I guarantee the answer will NOT come to you, because nobody will provide you the answer magically.
You can however ask a professor, a teacher, another student or even a relative or friend about how to find the answer.... OR look it up on Google. 100% of the time, Google will come up with the answer.
Based on religious logic, then.... We should worship Google as our god. Because it answers us, unlike the biblical 'god'.
Nordicfox
You tried religion but you were stopped from even trying it? So apparently you didn't try it.
God wasn't lying when he said that there would be hypocrites in the church. So it's expected and as He also said that all hypocrites will have their place in the lake of fire.
I would much rather spend time in church with a few of them, than in Hell with all of them.
I would say that you probably don't have a problem going to Wal-Mart or some other places with them.
By the way you keep asking why I'm on this site. I would have to say that this site was created for this reason. If you simply read introduction to this site you may understand why. So why are you on here if you don't like it. You do realize that you don't have to read or respond to the posts right?
Maybe you don't considering that you apparently are not aware that there is no law in the United States about the separation of church and state. You should do more research on the subject. Go to the internet and do a search. You can find out what President wrote a letter, and to whom. If you actually look into the whole conversation you can come to the conclusion that he was talking about a one way wall that the state was not to cross and the church was needed to cross.
Have you ever wondered that if that was a law, why are there scriptures on the walls of the Supreme Court building of the United States?
This country was founded on Christianity, and was considered a Christian country until the 1950's. You should really do some home work.
You apparently are just taking people's word for some of the other things you comment on also.
I sent Lmale some info on soft tissue in dino bones from what I would think is a prestigious magazine for evolutionists, the Smithsonian magazine. They go against what Lmale claims.
I have more information on other things that go against what he and others keep claiming. I will release as needed. According to what you guys keep trying to sell. Though most of it I would say is you just take what you want to and run with it as long as it goes with what you want.
Talk to you and later!
Christianity bastardizes our nation's history, it was -not- founded on the church, it was founded on freedom of/freedom from religion! England was ruled by a christian standard, and that alone caused the original Anglo settlers to flee to the 'new world'!
"The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that and Article VI specifies that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
(See ANY version of the constitution, bill of rights, amendments, pal.)
Which means that according to the constitution, under the 1st Amendment, American citizens have freedoms of/from religions, but the government/government officials can NEVER use a 'test of religiosity' to determine actions or appointments in government. It's not so much a "law" any more than the 1st Amendment is a "law".
But under that same idea, it's incredulous to put religious items/scripture on government property. If the government suddenly decided it was Muslim, I'm fairly sure Christians would be in an uproar if the Koran was cited in city halls, at the expense of everything else.
Just as government buildings are NOT sites for atheism... They are sites for governing. You go to court for legal purposes, you go to school to learn, you go to public, tax-funded parks for recreation on your freetime. I should not be subjected to your mythical messiah's supposed goings-on because I must attend one of these places.
Just as you should not be subjected to a lecture by Richard Dawkins when you decide to go to your Sunday shenanigans.
You can't see reason, logic, or common sense. I pity you for this, you are a slave to men in buildings who tell you what to think. You might try to accuse me of the same thing, believing in what hundreds, thousands, millions of professors and scientists write in scholarly articles and scientific journals.
But there is one very large, very specific difference.
Scientists criticize one another, demand evidence and demand that claims be evaluated and possibly duplicated in order to prove them as more or less 'correct'. Science is never 100%, rather variances of more or less correct.
Whereas clergy tell you the same version, everywhere, and shut down, plug their ears and scream "I lub jeebuz" anytime you try to speak to them. Nobody can correct them because "gawd can't lie" supposedly, they never face peer review, they can't duplicate what the bible says (if you can personally make a wooden boat over 1,000 feet long alone and survive any body of water, bring jeezuz into my living room to tell me I'm incorrect or any manner of the madness depicted in the bible I would rescind my statements).
I have never seen any evidence that god exists (any god or gods), and I have seen mountains of evidence that says humans created a god character to justify what they felt was a baseless existence... And still believe their own lies.
Furthermore, it may surprise you to know that many of our nation's founders were agnostic, cited christianity -0- times in the constitution and later on, great presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant were atheists.
I agree strongly with Abraham Lincoln personally when he said (and I quote) "The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion, I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian Dogma. My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years. It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity."
And George Washington himself (and again I quote directly from his own word): "The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy. As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community, are equally entitled to the protections of civil government."
Now, Washington was not an atheist, but in his own words he declared that this nation was NOT, in fact meant to be guided by the church.
That hasn't stopped people from pretending, but it makes it none-the-less true.
And you have it backwards, this country was considered SECULAR -until- the 1950's, the cold war was the first and only time "In God We Trust" was printed on money, as an anti-communist ploy.
Obviously, it is you who needs to do more homework. But from your previous statements I'm really not sure that you've seen a day in a college.
I'm trying my best to be civil, I just think it'd be best if you woke up, man. Religion is a scapegoat, a way of pretending the world is designed to be a certain way in an attempt to supplant the peasantry. A poor, working man who believes he deserves better is far less easy to control than a poor man who believes some god ordained he remain that way.
I'm done, I'll leave you alone to try and sell us dreams of infinite ice-cream in the clouds if we willingly obey someone who likely doesn't exist, and never has. But I think eventually, hopefully, you will see the error in your ways.
Not likely to happen, but I won't hold it against you... Religious indoctrination is among the strongest of all the slavery chains.
Nomadic Fox,
Nice how you have to add the word "from" into your depiction of the First Amendment to the Constitution.
It's the only way you can make it say what you want it to. Your as guilty of trying to change what the Founding Fathers set up this country as the ignorant politicians, and judges that have destroyed our rights to accommodate what their agenda is.
Do you know that the word of and from are two different words? One is not used in place of the other.
This is how the actual article is written:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
As you can see the word from is not in it. Do you get it? Are you of the old England Monarchy. Are you a socialist? Who here is trying to take away who's rights?
What part of" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
do you not get?
That gives me, you, and any other American the right to choose what religion we want. Whether Christianity, Jehovah Whiteness, Mormonism, Catholicism, or Atheism, whatever you decide. And the government can't force anyone. And you will not force me, nor any other True Christian. I know there are many that want a communist United States. It will happen over dead bodies. Maybe that's what you want huh?
Keep things straight or don't argue them.
Who's the foolish one now? Maybe your buddies will try and back you on this one, or NOT!!!!
And tried, past tense. I used the term correctly, dude.
I tried religion (before) and attended sermons (before), and (at some point) I stopped trying (to believe at all).
I guess I need to learn better, clearer syntax, to avoid confusing the religious folk.
Chuck, the field of radiometrics is not wholly limited to the isotope Carbon-14. There are several radioactive isotopes used to date fossils and earth samples. Pretty much any and every radioactive isotope has been used in some cases. Plutonium-244, Uranium-238, Barium-130, Calcium-48... It's a field of research that is constantly evolving as scientists observe the natural cycles of radioactive isotopes and their deposition into the environment.
Regarding your concerns that dating must be inaccurate for fossils that are dated to be millions of years old because carbon-14 has a half life too short to be measurable after millions of years, you would be correct. In such cases though, assume carbon-14 dating was most likely not the method used to obtain such estimates. Chances are it was the afore mentioned calcium-48, which has a half life of 4.3x10^19. That's 430,000,000,000,000,000,000 years... Which is a hell of a long time. We don't even have a name for a number that contains 19 zeros, if that puts it in perspective for you.
But often times scientists use external factors such as rock and soil samples to place it in a general time frame as well. Which is a reasonable assumption, as we know that newer sediment layers are deposited atop older ones. As long as there are no indications of a disturbance, it can be reasonable to assume the fossil was in the sediment layer at the time the sediment layer was deposited.
I hope Chuck, that this has been slightly informative to you. As a Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear defense specialist for the United States Marine Corp, radiactive decay and half lives are something I take pride in knowing a rather great deal about. Though my field of expertise is not necessarily dating, but the defense against the harmful particles released by the passing of half lives.
@Chuck
Just checking in...
Btw, the Creation Seminar videos were available both for download on torrent sites and on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Y2fLUmRR0&list=PL0hhX2rP03Qrm473ubXQ5s...
@Chuck
Where'd you go, man?
Maybe he got grounded ;)
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