Talk:Young Earth Creationism

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• Archive 1

15. Too few Supernovas

This section actually discusses comets, not supernovas. I thought I should point this out. Learn together 13:52, 22 June 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, I made the correction. I have been doing some work on this article in the last two days and I saw your comment on this page. Conservative 17:54, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

Glad I could help. ;-) Learn together 17:55, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Dates

Since this is protected, could someone dewikilink the dates? Thanks. JazzMan 23:45, 30 August 2007 (EDT)

Starlight and the Age of the Universe rewrite

I've just rewritten much of the Starlight and the Age of the Universe section. My main reasons for doing this are that it gave too much importance to Setterfield's idea, which has been abandoned by most leading creationists, and it totally failed to mention Russell Humphreys' idea. Philip J. Rayment 23:22, 13 September 2007 (EDT)

Mr. Rayment, I do like your edits and want to know if what you say is true but it must be cited to be shown true. I deleted the sentence saying that most creationist or creationist scientists have abandoned Setterfield's idea. If you can cite that sentence, please include it. Conservative 23:28, 13 September 2007 (EDT)

See my edit comment. Reference should be forthcoming. Philip J. Rayment 08:31, 15 September 2007 (EDT)

Links

Many of the links given here are out of date, or have no bearing on the topic in question. I'll make a complete list at some point so you can update them all once the topic is unlocked.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Longitude (talk)

An administrator can update them whilst it is locked. Philip J. Rayment 23:22, 7 October 2007 (EDT)

Craters

Has YEC ever confronted the issue of meteor craters such as the one off the Yucatan peninsula? MetcalfeM

What's the "issue"? Philip J. Rayment 00:30, 18 January 2008 (EST)

Sorry I thought the issue would be clear. The fact that there is a huge crater (which is the gulf of mexico) in the earth. Surely if this had happened within 6000 - 10000 years ago there would A)Been record of it and B)Caused massive and, perhaps due to the size of the crater, irreversible damage to the growth and propagation of Mankind. Hence the issue is how does YEC explain craters (very old craters I might add)which dot the earth? MetcalfeM

That such craters are "very old" is only according to your belief system. And the Chixulub crater on the Yucatan peninsula was not formed by a meteor ([1] see under "Signs of desperation").

If impact craters were formed late in Noah's Flood, or even in the next few hundred years before mankind spread out around the planet, there would have been nobody around those places to witness them.

Philip J. Rayment 22:03, 21 January 2008 (EST)

You say that "Very old" is my belief yet Noahs flood is also your belief and I am not going to take one link from Creationweb about the crater that the Gulf of Mexico as a final truth. Are you suggesting that all the craters that dot the earth (aside from the Tunguska Blast of 1908)all took place in a short few hundred years during the flood and soon after? MetcalfeM

Yes, Noah's flood is my belief, and I don't expect you to take any source as the final truth on anything. (However, the reference I linked to was specifically for the information that it wasn't an impact crater, and for that they were quoting non-creationists.) Some creationists do believe that the Flood was accompanied by a meteor bombardment, so yes, I'm suggesting (not claiming) that most of the impact craters on the Earth may have been formed in that time period.

Have any of you YECers ever looked here? http://www.answersincreation.org/young_earth_creationist_argument_index.htm MetcalfeM

Yes, I've looked at the site before. Philip J. Rayment 21:25, 22 January 2008 (EST)

And what did you make of that site? MetcalfeM

I was not impressed. I can't recall specifics now, but probably they put the ideas of secular scientists above the Word of God, which a Christian should not do. On the Dinosaur discussion page you will have seen my reply about their "rebuttal" of the soft tissue issue. Their "rebuttal" was little more than a few throwaway lines, and severely lacking compared to the CMI rebuttal I pointed you to, which properly addresses the claims and clearly points out their errors. But whether that's typical of their other arguments or not I don't recall at the moment. Philip J. Rayment 00:43, 23 January 2008 (EST)

Well, anyway, aside from the website, on the issue of craters - it seems like quite a throwaway comment to simply say some creationists believe there was a meteor bombardment around the time of the flood. Such a bombardment would have devastated the planet and, if correct about meteors bombarding during this period (say over a period of 200yrs) why would the rates of erosion be so different? Some craters, such as the one in Arizona, are very clear while others have more or less faded away and can only be seen with satillite imagery. Metcalfe

First, a specific answer. The amount of erosion would depend not just on the passage of time, but the climate in the area. A dry environment, for example, would not have the same erosion as a wet one.

Now, a more general answer. Neither creationists nor evolutionists claim to have the answers to every last problem. Just because a creationist does not have an answer to a specific problem does not mean that the creationary view is refuted. And keep in mind that creationists get almost nothing in research money (and most of what they do get is from private sources) compared to the billions that evolutionists get. So it's not surprising that creationists have not done much research in some areas. What is surprising, in my opinion, is that they've managed to provide good explanations for so much, given the severe lack of both funds and researchers. Perhaps that's because with a creationary view things fall into place better? Anyway, the point is that if someone tries to question how a bit of evidence fits with the creationary view, I will give the best answer I can, but in some cases that may be no more than a possible explanation, rather than a researched one. The point being that if there is a possible explanation, it undermines the argument (whether explicitly put or not) that 'creationists can't answer such-and-such'. I accept that in this case the answer I've provided is pretty speculative, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. What I find very often is anti-creationists rejecting creationist explanations because the creationist explanation doesn't fit into the anti-creationists' theory.

Philip J. Rayment 21:42, 23 January 2008 (EST)

It is very debatable to suggest that a creationist view fits better. What seems more likely here? That the earth has sustained meteor hits throughout its history (much as you would see from craters on the moon and, more recntly, the comet that hit Jupiter) or that meteor craters are the result of a short bombardment that failed to kill everything on the planet (or on the boat as your case may be)? Sure things erode faster dependent on weather etc but for a large crater to be almost oblierated by wind etc in less than 6000yrs is a large stretch of the imagination. And they (creationists) havent managed to provide "good explanations" at all. If they were "good explanations" why is not recognized by the scientific community? Oh right, I forget...its because they are all part of the liberal atheistic conspiracy. And where you have said "What I find very often is anti-creationists rejecting creationist explanations because the creationist explanation doesn't fit into the anti-creationists' theory." can be said the same about you, my friend, and ASchlflay and his junta as if it does not fit with your theories (god, YEC or whatever) it is branded as liberal, evolutionist or down right lies. MetcalfeM

Of course many others won't agree that the creationist view fits better, but I think it does, and I offered that as a reason that creationists have been able to explain so much with so little in the way of resources. But it was a general statement, not one specific to craters. I acknowledge that the evolutionary view does seem to fit the evidence better in a few cases, but overall, I believe that the creationary view fits the evidence better.

I won't disagree with your second paragraph that, on the strength of what we have discussed so far, your explanation seems more reasonable (which doesn't mean that it's right, of course), but I will take issue with your last point about 6,000 years of erosion, as this is something based on your worldview, not on the observable evidence. That is, no-one has ever observed how much erosion can occur in 6000 years. Rather, you look at how much erosion has occurred in something that, according to your views, is 6000 years old, and use that as your yardstick. But your yardstick then depends on your views, so your yardstick cannot be used to support your views, as that would be a circular argument. More on that below.

Why are creationist explanations not accepted by the scientific community? Well, for starters, you are incorrect to say that it isn't. That is, you are talking as though the "scientific community" is of one mind on this issue. But it's not—creationary scientists are part of the "scientific community". Now if you are asking why creationist views are not accepted by the majority of the scientific community, then my answer is not conspiracy (i.e. a deliberate attempt to suppress something that they know to be true), but to point out that (a) there's been times in the past where the majority, even the vast majority, were not right, so that creationists are not in the majority doesn't really mean much, and certainly doesn't mean that their views are wrong, and (b) this is not a dispassionate academic exercise, but something that goes to the core of a person's religious beliefs (including atheistic beliefs), so the atheists are going to disagree and fight this without forming a conspiracy to do so. Add to that peer pressure, suppression of the creationist view so that most don't get to learn of it (how are the "good explanations" of the creationists going to convince other scientists if they never get to read them?), etc.

Regarding rejecting explanations, I may not have made myself clear enough. To use an example to illustrate, evolutionists believe that there was no global flood and that civilisation has been around for many thousands of years. YECs believe that there was a global flood 4,350 years ago, and that all civilisations that we have evidence for are younger than that. They also believe that the dating methods used by evolutionists are based on the evolutionary view being true and are therefore in error.

Now, there's (at least) two ways to refute an argument. One is to produce evidence against it. Another is to show that the argument is logically or internally inconsistent. So you might refute the creationist belief about the age of civilisations by producing a reliable ancient document listing a succession of rulers and how long they ruled, the total of which exceeds the 4,350 years that the creationists believe. Or you might point out (if it was true) that creationists believe that the pyramids, being so massive, survived the flood whilst also believing that the rock the pyramids were built of were formed during the flood. This would show that their arguments are not consistent with themselves.

But what many evolutionists often do is neither of those approaches, but to reject the creationist argument that civilisation is no more than 4,350 years old by quoting evolutionary dates for the civilisations being older. So they will say, "the flood could not have happened 4,350 years ago, as Egypt has been around for 5,000 years". As someone else coined the phrase, your theory doesn't fit with my theory so your theory must be wrong. The point being, arguing that creationists are wrong because it doesn't fit within the evolutionary viewpoint is an invalid argument. That's what I was saying anti-creationists do very often, and I reject that I do the same the other way. And this is what your 6,000 years of erosion argument was doing.

Philip J. Rayment 21:32, 24 January 2008 (EST)

YEC is not all of Creationism

I would ask that someone go through this article and seperate YEC from Creationism. YEC is a branch of Creationism, but not the whole. In fact, I would say that YEC is a fringe group and thus all statements which go roughly "This is how Creationists argue [something]" should be replaced with "This is how Young Earth Creationists/Young Earthers/YECs argue [something]" before you give people the wrong impression. It is bad enough that Wikipedia does this, does conservapedia has to do it too? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xenuite (talk)

You are correct that YEC is a "branch" of creationism, not the whole, but I disagree that it's just a fringe group, and I'd also argue that many people use "creationism" and its variations as synonymous with YEC.

Of the main creationist organisations (CMI, ICR, CRS, AiG, Hovind's organisation, the North West Creationist Group (if I recall the name correctly; I'm in a hurry) and RTB, all except the last are YEC. YEC is also the historical (pre-Hutton/Darwin/etc.) view.

Philip J. Rayment 15:11, 14 February 2008 (EST)

I concur with Xenuite and move for such a change. Everwill 12:48, 3 April 2008 (EDT)

Error in age

Whoever wrote the Age of the Universe section needs to edit it again. I don't know what the correct numbers are for the estimated ages of the universe and the Earth, but I know that if the Earth is 4,500 billion years old, the universe isn't 14,000 million years old. Actually, if I remember correctly, the Earth is estimated to about 4.5 billion years, and I have no idea what the corresponding age of universe would be [14 billion years?]. Someone take a look. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Foxtrotuniform (talk)

I took it you meant the 'Contrasted with evolution' section. "4,500 billion" should have been "4,500 million", which for most people is 4.5 billion. "14,000 million" (14 billion) was correct. Thanks for picking that up. Philip J. Rayment 04:41, 22 February 2008 (EST)

Google

6th rank good, Wikipedia still 1st —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jeanluc (talk)

Overreaction...?

Conservative, I think you overreacted. I was just editing what I thought I could without changing the direction of the article, and I don't think you needed to reprotect it. --_transResident Transfan^form! 21:06, 26 April 2008 (EDT)