Ask the Atheist

I heard of WHC and found it to be rather amusing personally.

The creationists sent me off to a bunch of pro-creationist websites about how the fossils aren't really in order, briefly mentioned sorting mechanisms to explain why they are, things like that. It's a little bit messy really.

"...what are the big pieces of evidence one would expect for a global flood"

By this I meant what would the geological evidence look like for a global flood, ignoring for the moment that the water had to come from somewhere and had to disappear somewhere.

As always though, thanks for the response ^^

Forget about out of sequence trilobites and objects more than 6,000 light years away. Can't the YEC's just claim that, since god created it all anyway, he just created some distant objects with their light already reaching us, and created rocks > 6,000 years old ("created with age") as well as just shuffled the trilobites around? The point, I guess, is why discuss these issues with these people anyhoo?

I love science. And I use to believe the earth was billions of years old. And one day I listen to a creationist give a presentation on dinosaurs and I have to admit up front that now I believe the earth can't be more then 6 or 7,000 years old. I would love to discuss these arguments for and against the flood with you if you are interested, there is nothing wrong with a friendly debate. We can always "agree to disagree" if it goes too far for you.

I think I answered at least most of the things you and others have said. I look forward to discussing it more. I am sorry it is so long but you had a lot of questions there are 11 points to make.

First I want to answer the question which provoked me to share this with you.
What would you expect to see from a global flood?

I would expect to see continent sized or even global sized erosion patterns from large amounts of moving water, billions of animals laid down in sediment (mud now turned to rock layers) all over the earth (fossil record), Marine life like clams on tops of most or all of the mountains including Mt. Everest, sedimentary (water born) rock covering most of the earth. And lots of water left over (71% of the globe is covered by oceans).

If you so desire I can email you references and pictures of all of the above mentioned. But I didn’t want to take up all the space. Also feel free to research any facts I mention below.

Here are some basic concepts of the global flood that many people are not aware of or don't understand. Also to answer some of the questions you brought up.

1. When animals die today they don’t fossilize they riot and decay. Bacteria and other animals eat it, and it riots back to dust. The only way to get a good fossil is cover it quickly with sediment like dumping concrete in your fish tank. That will give you a fossil fish. But if it just dies it will riot away leaving no fossil. This is true today and in the past.

2. The bible says the flood lasted 371 days (it rained for 40 days, but the water came up for 150 days the rest was the receding of the water off the continents).

A. Most of the water came from underground chambers through the fault lines we see all over the earth today. (the fountains of the great deep burst open it says in scripture)

3. The bible says the mountains arose after the flood (which is what evolutionists call Pangea and continental drift today) thus you didn't have to cover Mount Everest with water because it wasn't there yet. Even evolutionists teach basically all the mountains came up in the very last part of the geologic time scale (the last few million years)

4. This (mountains going up after the flood) also explains where the water went. Mountains came up the water rushed off into the low places we now call oceans. Which explains the continent sized erosion marks all over the U.S. and the world. Also explains the continental shelf that wraps around all the continents. Lastly it explains why every moutain range has thousands of fossil clams on top.

5. If the mountains where lower and oceans basins were higher the earth would be covered 1.5 miles deep with water. The earth now is covered 71% under water. It is still flooded.

6. Water does sort rocks and dirt into layers, and this can be demonstrated with various types of rocks, and dirt in a glass box. Shake it and set it down. It will make many layers in less then a minute or so

7. Animals would be buried in mud (later turning to rock) basically where they live. Deep ocean life (trilobites, jelly fish), shallow ocean life (regular fish) , reptiles, etc up to man who would avoid the water the longest (make shift boats holding on to logs and such). I believe this is why there aren’t many human fossils. Because they would die and riot before they were covered by enough mud to preserve their body.

8. 95% of the entire fossil record consists of marine invertebrates (water going creatures with no backbone like jelly fish). The geologic column gives the impression that we see a gradual progression but this can be demonstrated to be not true. Also the idea that not finding an animal in a certain layer proves when it lived in falsified by the coelacanth fish. According to the G. Column they went extinct before the dinosaurs. And are not found in any layer above that! But they are alive today. Over 200 have been caught and recorded by fishermen, and scientists. So there is no reason to think any animal is extinct because of the Geologic column.
These things are called “living fossils”. There are so many examples of them that evolutionist just ignore the subject all together. There is no answer to that problem. If you just look up “living fossils” you will find hundreds of them.

9. The geologic column itself doesn’t exist anywhere in the world (except in the textbooks). If it did it would be nearly 100 miles deep. The deepest fossils are about 1 to 1.5 miles deep. The deepest hole anyone has every dug is only about 5 miles deep. They take the thickest layers and assume they were at least that thick in the past then put them in a supposed evolutionary order and say that’s what happened. So how do you know what the right order is? By assuming evolution has happened. This is called circular reasoning. Using evolution to put the column in order then using the column as proof for evolution. It’s the same as say’s “evolution is true because evolution is true”. We can deal more with evolution later if you like.

10. It can also be shown that the various layers (really layer remnants) were laid down rapidly. The eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980 laid down hundreds of layers and a huge canyon in 9 hours… literally one day. This has prompted many evolutionists to argue that there were “thousands of floods over millions of years”. Well it’s hard to argue with that because the same stuff could be explained with one big flood. So I won’t pick on that too much.

11. Helium is a byproduct of the decay of uranium and can be used to date a rock. We also know that if you use the rate of helium diffusion from the rock you get consistent dates. So why trust a method (uranium decay) that never gives you the same date when tested more then once? Because it gives dates of millions or billions of years. If the date is wrong just test it again until you get a date you like. This is what they do, It is sad we call that science. When you already know what date you want just write that down and save time and money.
So why not use helium diffusion as a dating method. It works well. . . because it always gives a date less then 7000 years. And that makes it wrong in their mind (evolutionists mind that is).

These are what I would consider the core arguments from the Young earth side. I could give more but I don’t want you to bore you to death. Let’s stick with stuff most scientist (YEC and evolutionist) agree on first.

Your thoughts…

Thanks Jeremy, your posts forced me to do some research and educate myself further. That's what I'm after: arguments to which there is not a widely known answer. With everything else I'm treading old ground, though that's what I have to do if the discredited arguments keep coming up.

I'll answer the horizon problem first and come back to the rest later.

Evolutionists are not working on ways to solve the horizon problem, because it's not in their field at all. It concerns me that you, like many creationists, seem to classify anyone in a field which contradicts Biblical Creation (archaeologists, geologists, physicists, cosmologists) as an "evolutionist", lumping all your opponents together. True, those in the above fields generally do accept evolution, but only biologists and zoologists actually approach these issues using it. Evolution is not a cover-all anti-Bible theory. It sticks to life-related matters.

Anyway, the first thing I found when I looked up the horizon problem is its cosmological solution, inflationary theory. It suggests that the early universe expanded exponentially for a period, in response to negative-pressure vacuum energy. This means that the whole observable universe originated in a relatively small, relatively connected area where heat and energy were able to redistribute relatively freely and even themselves out. This explains the homogeneity we see when we look out there.

To investigate your alternative hypothesis, I looked up your Dr Russell Humphreys (who at different times has been the go-to scientist for at least four major "creation science" organisations). As it says in the link, his model of the universe rests on a great many conclusions of his, all of which other scientists have challenged or outright dismissed: everything from sodium in the sea to underground zircons to the Kuiper Belt to the speed of light. This man's work has zero support outside of young-earth creationists. Even the old-earth creationists are against him. That doesn't mean by itself that he's wrong, of course, but it does mean there are some ready-made reasons stated by other scientists why his conclusions are.

The main point I want to press about his model, however, is that it only explains one thing: how, with the universe looking the way it does to us, it could possibly be less than 10^4 years old. That's not the case with the inflationary theory. It doesn't just solve the horizon problem, it also takes care of the flatness problem (related to the initial conditions and future expansion of the universe) and the lesser-known magnetic monopole problem (i.e. why there aren't any magnetic monopoles). It's a far-reaching explanation supported by already-accepted scientific evidence and theories. That's why it deserves the honorific of "theory".

When Dr Humphreys talked about "evolutionists" working on the problem, he was referring to inflationary theory. He didn't mention it by name because it renders his model unnecessary and he'd rather not publicise it. He said it isn't a working model because he wants you to accept his model without even hearing the alternative, which you did.

He was right in a way because inflationary theory isn't a complete, working model. A complete model would be a Grand Unified Theory or "theory of everything", and science just ain't there yet. We don't expect that from current theories. We just expect them to fit in with the rest of science, or have REALLY good reasons for contradicting it.

Now to tackle these flood arguments.

Firstly, on this site I don't "agree to disagree" until a point is moot. For example, I was discussing whether chance can produce information, and eventually a slightly ordered universe. The man who thought not eventually honed his definition of information until it ruled out the kinds of information which are adequate for the development of planets, life, etc. So even if chance can't produce his kind of information, the modern world could come about without it. A god isn't necessary, so I left it at that.

1. Notice that the kinds of animal parts which rot away before sediment can cover the bodies (flesh, organs, brains) don't actually appear in fossils? Bones, shells and other hard bits, on the other hand, can hang around for decades before disintegrating. Put them in the right place and they'll easily last long enough for a slow burial. That's why fossils are skeletal.

2. The undreground chambers would explain the "fountains of the great deep", though it still supposedly rained from nowhere for 40 days as well. Why, in all our mining and deep-core investigations, have we not happened upon evidence of these great reservoirs since? Fault lines are of great interest to those fields of science.

Alternatively, since the Flood was supposed to be an act of God, He could have created all the extra water on the spot and destroyed it when He was done. Whether they involve God or not these explanations aren't evidence for the Flood. They're excuses for a lack of evidence for the Flood.

3. Never mind the mountains, they're the exception. My point was that the rest of the land on Earth had to have been underwater recently. Mountaintops are the only place we might not find evidence of submersion. It should be available in forests, deserts, jungles, tundra, the lot.

4. Same principle. Why only erosion marks here and there? All land should be one big erosion mark. We know water has flowed in many places where it now doesn't (Australia may once have had an inland sea, for example) but water capable of carving the Grand Canyon out of solid rock in less than a year would leave no patch unscarred.

5. The world is flooded if you want to look at it like that, but this Flood was a flood on top of what was already there. If you want to speculate instead that the water just sat there while the land moved up and down, there's a whole other family of geological evidence to look for. Plus, it renders all the "fountains" and rain unnecessary.

6. Dirt and rock do sort into layers. Unless you're certain nobody's got an example of denser material laid down on top of lighter stuff which had already solidified, though, it's a precarious point to make.

7. Just try to imagine a world where this rule held absolutely, and every specimen of a particular extinct species succumbed when the water was at almost exactly the same level. Where no pterodactyl managed to fly to temporary safety when all the other dinosaurs had drowned. Where no Australopithecus managed to grab a fallen tree and float for a week. That's exactly what needs to have happened for like fossils to appear invariably at like depths, as they do. What are the chances that no creature outlasted the rest of its species by six weeks?

The coelacanth need not have gone extinct just because it left the fossil record. Every individual creature has only a tiny chance of becoming a fossil. There are likely many species we will never find as fossils, and therefore never know they existed at all. The coelacanth more likely went extinct or nearly extinct only in shallow waters, where we find most of our fossils, and lived on in the deep ocean.

8. It's a big ocean. It was a gradual progression between marine invertebrates for billions of years before anything even tried to live on land. Who said the time spent on land or with backbones, both arbitrary milestones, had to be comparable to what had come before? Who said evolution had to produce the same extent of obvious changes to shells and skeletons all the way along? If it ain't broke, why fix it?

Which brings us to "living fossils". They are as subject to natural selection as everything else. The difference is that they remain the ones being naturally selected. Sometimes a species, like a coelacanth or a crocodile or a dragonfly, reaches a point where it's so good at surviving and procreating that any further mutations reduce its abilities and are soon bred out. Visible evolution all but stops, but it's a constant battle for the status quo to win out over any new variations. It then takes a drastic change in environment to spur major adaptations.

9. The geologic column exists in its entirety in North Dakota and it's 5000 metres deep, which is just over three miles.

10. Mt St Helens laid down hundreds of layers around Mt St Helens, and the great big exploded mountain in the middle tells us that it's there. For that to have happened worldwide, there'd be evidence of widespread volcanoes just like there'd be ubiquitous evidence for the Flood, but outside of the "Ring of Fire" volcanoes are and always were very rare, at least once the molten Earth had mostly solidified 4 billion years ago.

11. Helium results from decaying uranium in zircons and other rocks, all right, but once that happens it's almost impossible for the helium to get out of the rocks. Dr Humphreys had to use a vacuum chamber. So yes, the helium is there, but in nature it's hardly diffused at all. Here's a full response by someone smarter than me.

There isn't just one method of radiometric dating, there are over a dozen. Any radioactive isotope will do. The most commonly used are uranium-lead, radiocarbon and potassium-argon. Some are indeed unreliable in some situations, so they're no longer used in those situations. To date an object accurately, several of the methods are used to establish a consensus and weed out any strange results.

Importantly, when radiometric dating gets it wrong the margin of error might be 90% (that's me being VERY pessimistic) but when the result is 65 million years, the youngest the object might actually be is 6.5 million years. No method of radiometric dating has the margin of error of 99.99% required for any dinosaur fossil to possibly be 6500 years old.

I appreciate that presenting me with this list of young-earth arguments may have been your way of obtaining the standard responses to each. If however you actually seek to convince me of something, may I recommend that you research your own arguments for a minute first to make sure there isn't already an answer floating about. I pulled most of the above from Google and Wikipedia alone, and so can you.

This talk by Humphreys or his representative, and whatever print material you've brought home from it, is intended to persuade you on the spot, before you think to question it. It succeeded. Now it's time to view what you were given in the full light of supporting and contradictory science, evidence and lack thereof. Don't just go by my answers, see what you can find yourself. Read both full sides of the argument and make a decision. Then come back here and tell us what you've chosen and why.

Have fun.

Wow where to begin. First I would like to give a few complements. I am excited to have a stable intelligent discussion about these issues. And I think your questions have been reasonable and fair questions to ask if the creation model be true we should understand most if not all of your questions. I have discussed this with “atheist” (I use that word carefully), before and most often they don’t have answers but refuse to consider the alternative. It usually turns into “you are just a dump creationist” but no real understanding of what has been proven and what we ultimately believe because we just want to believe that. You have yet to call me a name (other then Jeremy) this has been surprisingly different and I thank you for that.

Now a few general comments. As to my “conversion” to young earth beliefs I have been studying this subject for about a year now. I was not an “overnight” convert. AT FIRST I THOUGHT IT WAS CRAZY. But I love science and if I was wrong I wanted to know. So I begin to look up some of the things mentioned and bought some books. I have given probably 15 or so presentations on the subject since then at churches, high schools, and library’s etc (when you learn you have been lied to you want to tell people). I don’t claim to be an expert but I am well studied on the subject, and have a full library of creation and evolution books (I mean written by evolutionist, and creationist). Also very aware of what your responses might be to my objects (as I have heard many of them in my Q and A sessions and read them in anti-creation books. (For example asteroid impact to change the rotation of a planet, and captured moons to explain the angular Mom. Problem). I didn’t include them in my first response for 2 reasons.
1. I didn’t want to put words in your mouth if you had better answers then what I have heard before. 2. To reduce the length of my responses as I know they are long. I mentioned before anyone can say “it must have happened that way because the big bang is true” but that is not evidence. These arguments don’t hold up under more objects (which I will give in a minute). So maybe after my rebuttal here I will encourage you to do more research. But I feel I am currently ready to answer any objection to the creation model in all the fields of science it covers.

You make a good point about Occam’s razor but that is not what I am suggesting. I certainly agree that science it a study of the natural world and we should use natural phenomena to explain what we see. I am not suggesting that God just made now accept it with out evidence. I believe it can be demonstrated with the laws of science that there ust be a God who created the universe with it laws in place to control it. The study of Origins is very different from the study of a plant. We can use chemistry and physics to explain how a plant works, but that does NOT explain where the plant came from? These are extremely Different questions! If I build a robot, the laws of math, electricity, and physics could explain how it walks and works, but again don’t explain it’s origin. In this case me being the origin. You mention Dr Hovind. I only want to briefly say overall I think he has been great at getting the word out and helping people ask the right questions. However I was always concerned that he was a little too zealous. He has put up some strong debates despite that fact that people don’t like him. Remember many don’t like creationist at all and to have a radically one is worst! I would not call myself an admirer, or following in his footsteps. I do believe to many people blindly accept evolution without at least checking to see if what is claimed is true. But MOST IMPORTANTLY being able to separate the fact’s from the interpretation. I.E. One fact being there are dead animals laid down by water all over the earth (The only way to get sedimentary rock). We see the same bones but one says big flood made fossils, the other they just happened to die under the right conditions and maybe get buried later by local flood, or mud flow. (we will get to this later I promise)

Also I think we have put too many topics on the table for anyone reading to follow so I will narrow it down (for now) to stars, planets, and the big bang, and age of the solar system. However I am excited about the flood geology and have answers for your questions regarding the flood. (which again are very good questions) later I will give examples of large scale erosion, explain the G. Canyon etc when we get back to that.

Cold dark matter or God.

As I said we ultimately have to believe (by faith without evidence) in God, or something else… Cold dark matter for example. It is assumed to be there. Sure it helps fix a issue in the model but that is an issue of faith. I think some people forget (not necessarily you) that we are looking at the same evidence. The same planets, rocks, fossils, canyons etc and we must start with a bias (I.E. There is a God who created, there isn’t) we then look at the evidence and come to conclusions that agree with our preconceived idea. I.E no God means it happened by chance, Creator God means it has purpose.

One more thing. My goal is really not to “convince” you. No amount of evidence can change a fixed heart (if yours is such the case). My goal was only to share with you the creation model help you and others understand with it actually teaches and show it fits the facts we observe today. But at the end of the day we believe what we want to believe.

Now lets get to the Big Bang.
The angular Momentum issue is exactly a Big Bang problem Here why.
1. According to the text book (I have about 6 or 7 middle school to college level) The big bang started as a swirling(spinning) cloud of gas and dust, it expanded and then gravity begin to “collect” the dust into (leaving out stuff on purpose) planets stars, etc.
Problems.
1. Saying an asteroid hit it is a miracle. An object from space big enough to change the rotation of a planet is major enough. But to say the conditions on the planet make it difficult or impossible to show that crater is not evidence but explaining the lack of evidence. That’s faith. Also I mentioned that the planet should show some kind of change in orbit (having a more elliptical orbit) if it was hit hard enough to not only slow down its spin to a stop but spin it the other direction. Venus has one of the most level (and round) orbits in our solar system.
2. Uranus is way to large to just believe it was hit with such a massive astreiod that it tipped over! WOW what great faith. The only proof of such an idea is that if it were not true it would disprove The Big Bang. You can’t break the conservation law. Uranus Earth and Venus have the most circular obits on the solar system. This is a solid argument.

3. The problem is bigger because there are galaxies that spin backwards. No amount of asteroids will spin the whole galaxy backwards. CNN ran a article last year (I use a copy of it in my presentations) that says in the head lines “Goofy galaxy spins backwards leaving astronomers scratching there heads!” If you look online you probably could find it. And there is more then one “spinning” the wrong way.

4. Quick note… Moons also have very circular obits which should not be the case if they were indeed captured.

5. To capture these large bodies (moons) requires great precision. Most would come in too close and break apart or crash into the planet. Also the gravity of the planet would accelerate it back out into space faster then it came in. The same method we use to get things out into the deep parts of space now.

Other problems with Big Bang. (There are about 10 I can think of on the top of my head if you are interested in going though all of them but I am picking the ones I believe are easier for you to validate what I claim)

1. You can’t get even one star to form. Or a planet. And there are over 100 billions galaxies each with over 100 billion stars.
Yes gravity attracts the particles together but Gas pressure pushes them apart. Do the math and the gas pressure is 60 times greater then the gravity. If any evolutionary website claims they know how stars form. I am sorry to tell you it’s not true. The top guys in this field all admit they don’t know how even one star forms.
The best example I have seen is one guy suggested that if 20 stars exploded near each other they would create enough force to over come gas pressure. I could only laugh because even if that happened you have to lose 20 to get 1. That is the opposite of what you want to get billions, and billions of stars. I also (just incase you mention it) read one say they see a star forming now but all they have is glowing gases, and you get exactly the same thing from a super nova. You can’t demonstrate that it is a star forming. We know a super nova creates glowing gases, we don’t know how a star forms. So they are imposing the idea on the data instead of letting the data speak. If you say it happens to slow to observe well again that is a faith based statement. If you can’t observe or test it that’s not science.
I am really trying to keep my answers short. I will cut it off with this last point.
It has been demonstrated that the speed of light can be changed and even stopped. All you had to do is search for slowing the speed of light, and you will find many scientists have been able to change the speed of light in various ways. You and I both agree that Einstein was smart and thought light was constant but this idea seems to be changing as we find out more information. Also the inflation theory requires an expansion faster then the speed of light wouldn’t that require a faster speed of light? To be completely honest I am not sure about that (requiring a faster light speed for inflation) I will check into that. And to clarify something you said Dr Humphreys suggested a change in the “speed of TIME”. HE believed Einstein’s theory and used it for his model. Light is a constant in his theory! You should check that out you might be surprised. Other creationist suggested a change in “speed of Light”. I did concede that they may both be wrong and it happened another way we don’t understand yet.
So lets start there…
I would like your permission to copy in it’s entirety (later after it is more complete) our exchange on my website if that is okay with you.
Thanks again for being rational and addressing the science questions with me instead of just calling names.

Hi Jeremy. Yeah, it's tough to get a decent conversation out of the other side too. I think many of them honestly think our only response will be to get thoroughly stumped and hurl insults. I must admit this is partly why I'm so polite.

Thanks for giving some background on yourself. The initial arguments looked rehearsed enough that I figured they were straight from Dr Humphreys' books or representatives. Now I realise that you are acting as his representative.

I take it you already believed in God before you became a young-earth creationist. You're very pessimistic about convincing anyone who's biased against belief. By your analysis, the only people who might become young-earth creationists are old-earth creationists (of various religions) and possibly agnostics. So why present your arguments here? Why not go about making believers of atheists from some other angle first, and then convince them of a young earth? I think you're more hopeful of hitting the tough targets than you let on.

I appreciate you wanting to shorten posts and improve focus, but you can do better than, "I have answers but I won't write them for now." Give us the names and links of actual books and articles to read, especially since you say the books ultimately convinced you.

Turns out the "cold dark matter or God" question is moot, because they found the stuff earlier this year. There's a great big stripe of it in front of a colourful galaxy, and filaments of it running through many others. There might still be a god, but there sure is dark matter.

My replies about the solar system do not say, "It must have happened that way because the Big Bang is true." Your arguments are aiming for, "It could not have happened that way, therefore the Big Bang is false." My replies are along the lines of, "If the Big Bang is true then it could have happened like this, so it's not as impossible or improbable as you make out."

All of your and Humphreys' arguments have a similar thrust. A thing or phenomenon or state of affairs, despite existing, is impossible to achieve by natural means or in an old universe. Therefore it was influenced or done outright in a short time by a supernatural being such as God. The general form is that of an argument from ignorance. This isn't an insult, I mean it in the classical sense: because a viable alternative is not known, there isn't one. It's a fallacy. You can certainly argue probabilities, but in no case do you actually know that there is no possible way for these things to happen naturally, or over billions of years, unless you're omniscient yourself. Even if a way is never found, there might still be one. You cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that a God or a young earth is necessary with this kind of argument, ever.

To specifics.

1. You know better than I do what a miracle is. An asteroid is not one. It happens all the time. Remember the Schumacher comet that broke up and hit Jupiter? There's no evidence of that now, because Jupiter has no solid surface. A slightly different trajectory, and it could have made it to the inner planets instead.

You said yourself that Venus has a unique orbit, and you say its orbit must have changed; put the two together. It may well have started more elliptical like the others, but been bashed inward at the major axis of its path (or outward at the minor axis, or even both).

Yes, the Venus upheaval process is a possible explanation of the lack of evidence, just like your idea of where the Flood waters went, but this is in response to an argument that the asteroid strike is impossible. I'm not trying to prove the event (I don't even know if it's what happened), merely show that it can't be ruled out. There will be other possibilities neither of us has thought of as well, so ruling it out doesn't leave you with only your hypothesis either. It's not faith if you can't choose, and we really can't.

By comparison, I don't think the Flood is impossible. I just think it's improbable, and any of the supposed effects of the Flood on the modern world have a plethora of possible explanations and are not good evidence for this particular one. You're trying to rule out ALL other explanations.

2. It's not faith if you don't know what you believe. I said a collision was the best explanation, and I may be wrong, but it's not the only one. You're creating a false dilemma. Again it may have been captured from outside, its circular orbit may be due to the collision rather than despite it, or other objects passing through may have pulled it any which way. There are almost unlimited options, not two. None of them is terribly likely by itself, but the sheer number of possibilities supplies a larger cumulative probability that it has a natural explanation.

3. I'm starting to realise that you think the angular momentum comes directly from the Big Bang. While the universe as a whole may well be spinning, nothing prevents individual pieces of it from spinning the other way within the larger rotation. Angular momentum for a solar system or galaxy is created by local gravity; two lumps of matter are pulled together and miss, and which way they turn back towards each other depends on whether it was a left-to-left pass or right-to-right. If the larger rotation creates a bias, that may be why we only see one "goofy" galaxy.

...and, come to think of it, one "goofy" planet. Perhaps one little part of the inner cloud swirled together the wrong way and formed Venus' core? Or two lumps passed just above and below one another and made Uranus' core? Angular momentum is conserved, but it doesn't have to be homogenous. See a problem with this hypothesis? Sound more likely than asteroids?

4. Moons have round orbits, but moons also have very close orbits. If they were also elliptical the way some of the planets' orbits are, they might be ripped apart by gravitational forces when they got too close. Over billions of years this may already have happened to some of them. In fact, that's what we think the rings of Saturn (among others) are, so there's circumstantial evidence that any moons with sufficiently eccentric orbits have already been culled.

5. How many moons might have already crashed into Jupiter? How many might have swung around a planet once and been flung off into space? The moons we see have good clean orbits because if it was otherwise, they wouldn't still be there. Nobody said the solar system gets it right every time.

On to the more general issues.

1. Name one such top astrophysicist if you're going to make a generalisation like that. Back yourself up, Jeremy!

As matter accumulates around the centre, inward and outward pressure increases, and so therefore does temperature. This can go on indefinitely until you run out of matter or the core temperature reaches the point where fusion reactions occur in the compressed hydrogen. Bang, fuse, sizzle, shine. What is it that stops the temperature from rising if the matter keeps coming, and what would you expect such a clump of matter to do instead?

2. After a bit of research I'll agree with you that the speed of light has been slowed by scientists by various means, but I already knew that. They put stuff in its way. It was exotic stuff, but you can do the same to a lesser extent with glass. The speed of light in a vacuum is still constant. Besides, doesn't Dr Humphreys' model require light to have travelled faster than the constant relative to us, not slower? Any examples of that happening?

As for changes in the speed of time, relativity does allow for that, but for 6000 years to pass for us while billions of years go by elsewhere requires us to be travelling at well over 99% of the speed of light. Since only the edges of the universe can be expanding at the speed of light, we would be catching up with nearer matter in the direction of our movement and there would be a visible blueshift instead of the omnipresent redshift.

3. You're not taking the Sun's enormous magnetic field into account when you point out the odd distribution of angular momentum. It's been braking itself since the beginning by dragging on all the charged particles it emits. It would have had the most angular momentum to start with, but not after five billion years.

You can reproduce this discussion when it's done if you like. Just tell me what your site actually is, give me an address so I can see it and include a link back to here.

I didn't notice you also asked about books and other references for flood. Here is a article Answers a creation Science journal. And the video above doesn't seem to have the link so here it is.
Answers Journal
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n3/transcontinental-rock-layers
Our solar System Video
http://nwcreation.net/videos/our_solar_system.html
books
The young Earth by Henry Morris

The case for the creator By Lee Strobel I was interested in him because he use to be an athiest. And he talks about what changed his mind through his research.

The case for Christ Also Lee Strobel

The Question of origins By Shelby Macfarlene. a Text book that deals fairly I think with both sides.

Icons of evolution by Jonathan Wells dealing with problems in the text books.

And Darwins black Box by Michael Behe. (intelligent design book)

The Answers Book by Ken Ham. this is a much more "bible based" version of the others. More scriptures etc but presented very plainly and clearly.

I also plan to get the RATE book. by ICR get more on the rate project.

Their are alot on my shelf but these pretty much cover what the others have to say.

I understand completely. I am still reading the Helium diffusion paper. Though I can't challenge data I don't understand. And some of it I admit is over my head. However I am interested in the truth. It's the only way to learn anything. I at least know why Dr Henke is mad with Humphreys. They have been going back and forth. Dr Henke give a lengthy response to the rate groups results and Dr Humphreys replied. This last one is Dr Henke's response to Humphreys.

Dr Humphreys called it "mud slinging without evidence" among other things.

It's a challenge to read two PH.D's argument over Helium diffusion rates in zircon crystals. If you are interested Dr Humphreys paper in PDF is here.
http://www.icr.org/pdf/rate/humphreys_to_hanke.pdf

I want to give you some quick answers to references and questions. ..
*a Museum in Texas has the 47 inch femur. http://www.mtblanco.com

*DNA mutation rates
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i1/eve.asp

This articles clears the differences between what was found and what it means. This information is consistent with the bible but doesn’t prove the bible. As we both know neither could be proved.

RATE Group
1. Yes I agree the Main (if not the ONLY) reason for the RATE project was to test the assumptions of radiometric decay! We already know it gives unreliable dates ranging from 100's of thousands to 100's of millions of years in the same rock.

A logical question to ask is can you trust any of the dates if they don't agree with each other.
3. Even evolutionist don’t trust these dates. Dates are often changed to fit the theory. And ultimately all dates are compared with the Geologic column as the definition of truth. You could say the Geologic column is the Bible of the evolutionist.
Here are some quotes from evolutionist to support my statements.

“Ever since William Smith at the beginning of the 19th century, fossils have been and still are the best and most accurate method of dating and correlating the rocks in which they occur. Apart from very ‘modern’ examples, which are really archaeology, I can think of no cases of radioactive decay being used to date fossils.”

Ager, Derek V., “Fossil Frustrations,” New Scientist, vol. 100 (November 10, 1983), p. 425.

“Radiometric dating would not have been feasible if the geologic column had not been erected first.”
O’Rourke, J. E., “Pragmatism versus Materialism in Stratigraphy,” American Journal of Science, vol. 276 (January 1976), p. 54

The troubles of the radiocarbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious. Despite 35 years of technological refinement and better understanding, the underlying assumptions have been strongly challenged, and warnings are out that radiocarbon may soon find itself in a crisis situation. Continuing use of the method depends on a “fix-it-as-we-go” approach, allowing for contamination here, fractionation there, and calibration whenever possible… It should be no surprise, then, that fully half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half come to be accepted . . . No matter how “useful” it is, though, the radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates.
Robert E. Lee, “Radiocarbon Age in Error,” Anthropological Journal of Canada, Vol. 19, No. 3, pgs. 9, 29.
My favorite line “ the accepted dates are actually selected dates.”

In case you didn’t know You can’t date sedimentary rock. There are too many different rocks, and elements in them. So they use the Geologic column. “how do you know the age of the fossil… by the rocks they come from, how do you know the age of the rock, by the fossils they contain.
Again the final published dates are from the column. This is circular reasoning. No proof of age to begin with. No fossil has a date stamped on it. 

2. Another goal of the RATE group was to determine if decay was accelerated in the past. Which might explain why we get “old” dates to begin with. This is what was demonstrated with the polonium halos, and Helium diffusion results.

3. The lab that did the work was not in any way affiliated with the creation movement.
According to ICR’s website “The experimenter was one of the world's foremost experts in Helium diffusion measurements in minerals.” “it was a blind test” (the lab didn’t know who was asking for the measurements). Their predictions where published in their 1st rate book before the results came back! They basically said if the earth is 6000 years old this is the predicted rate. If the rock is 1.5 billion yrs (as given by tradition methods) then the other is predicted.
This is why we are so excited about it! The results were published in the second rate book.
The whole point of using an independent lab was to keep from being accused of faking the numbers. According to a presentation I watched the other day that lab even published a statement saying “though we disagree with the conclusions made by ICR they stand by there results.” It was a blind test. They didn’t know it was a creation team that sent the rocks to be tested. I am trying to find the name of the lab now. It is possible they don’t want there name listed on ICR’s website. But I am sure it is listed in the RATE book if not online. I will check the book store sometime soon. Until then we can leave this one on hold.
One last point. According to any evolutionist the results must be wrong for some reason or another because of the assumption of an old earth.

In reality (just as a comment) I don’t think the age of the earth is the biggest problem for evolution. But I do believe if it could be demonstrated beyond any question or assumption that the earth is 6000 years old all of evolution would be destroyed. That being the case (if I was on the other side) I would defend the “old earth” with all the religious fervor I had. It has to be old for evolution to be true. No one believes it all evolved in 6000 years that’s within recorded history.

Nature or God
I understand the logic you are trying to use with the Naturalism VS God question but that just doesn't cover it.
The definition of Religion “A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.”

You could easily say Evolution/naturalism is a model of beliefs concerning the cause nature and ultimate purpose of the universe.

The Random House College Dictionary, 1982. Rev. ed.
Edited by Jess Stein, p. 1114
According to the supreme court Creation science is. Chief Justice Rienquist & Justice Scalla, "We have no basis on the record to conclude that creation-science need be anything other than a collection of scientific data supporting the theory that life abruptly appeared on the earth." Edwards vs. Aguillard, Dissent.
I would not argue that Creation is “more” scientific then evolution. Even though I believe that. However I would say they are equally scientific and equally religious. In that we look at the same facts (fossils etc) and based on our assumptions conclude God must have created or Nature must have created itself.
The first law of Thermodynamics Says "matter can't be created or destroyed". This is a LAW of science. We Know for a fact Matter can't create itself. So where did it come from? This is why many Humanist don’t like the Big Bang as presented now because it says there was a beginning. Requiring a “first cause”
2. The 2nd law say basically usable energy is running irreversibly down. Stars blow up things wear out, we get old and die. Nothing is improving every thing is getting worst.

Here is a quote on thermodynamics. Isaac Asimov, "Another way of stating the second law then is 'The universe is constantly getting more disorderly!' Viewed that way we can see the second law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order: how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself–and that is what the second law is all about.", Smithsonian Institution Journal, June, 1970, p. 6

This means two things.
1. it had to be up from which it could run down. It had to be ordered to become disordered
2. The universe can't be infinitely old or it would have long sense run down to ultimate heat death and disorder. Both creationist and evolutionist agree this will happen one day.
These are undisputed facts of science.

I agree that the God of the bible is not necessarily the only possible creator. There are people now who think other god's created. Science could never tell us "who" the creator is, those are philosophical questions. Which we could talk about in another forum if you want to know why I think the Christian God is the “correct one”. But the 1st and 2nd law demand a “creator” that is not apart of nature. Something “super” natural, or outside of nature. That is basic logical thinking.

The law of cause and effect says "no affect is without a cause and no effect can be greater then it's cause". So you can't argue that God might be apart of nature because nature can't possibly be the "1st cause". And if the God if the bible is true He could not have created himself. Thus creation can NOT be greater then the creator (something super natural). One person asked me “well who created God”. I think you know the answer but for the readers this is the same as asking “what does the color red smell like?” It means they don’t understand the meaning of the word they are using. If God exist he must be eternal. Thus not requiring a cause. There are only two possibilities I am aware of. There are an infinite number of gods that preceded and created the god’s that followed requiring each God to be a little less powerful then the former or There is one Infinite God who is all powerful that created.

Here is some basic cause and effect reasoning that should be logically to most. However I know it will still be rejected by some. Not because of the logic but because of the implications of the logic. (Implications like If God made this world he owns it, he makes the rules etc)

*The creator of time must be eternally. (Cause and effect demands this)
* the creator of life must be living. (no effect can be greater then it’s cause)
* the creator of all information must be infinitely intelligent.
* I could go on but you get the point I am trying to make.

I think it is unreasonable to think something could begin without a cause. And the universe has been shown to have a beginning. Even if you try and Go back before the Big Bang you still need a beginning.

I am glad you mentioned the list from Discovery Ins.
The list of creation scientist is different from the list of those that “dissent from Darwin”.

This group does not want to be grouped with “creation” scientist. You said yourself it is a big jump to go from complete naturalism to the God of the Bible. I completely agree with that statement. And these guys are “in-between” if I can describe it that way. They don’t necessarily believe the bible but they agree Darwin is not enough.

Some of them I know are not creation scientist. I have not be able to find one creation scientist on the list. At least I haven’t been able to find one on the list that I know to be a creation scientist and I could list 30 or so names myself.

They simply disagree with the statement made in a PBS special on evolution that “basically ALL” scientist believe Darwin explained information or the complexity of life we see today. And “their list” is a testament against that statement. Up to 700 names now. If you have a moment please read there statement and you will see what I mean.

http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/faq.php (what does it say and mean)

http://www.discovery.org/a/3347 (article about the list)
evolutionary biologist and textbook author Dr. Stanley Salthe is one of the more interesting names on the list.

The 10,000 creation scientist are those practicing in a field of science who believes the bibles interpretation of creation is the best explanation for the universe and life based on what we see around us. Yes ultimately we base our model on the bible, just as evolution is based undeniably on the philosophy of naturalism. Laws of science require a creator.

I will use the word Bias if you don’t like the word faith.

4. The intelligent design Group is working hard to keep their work separate from creationist. And I think that is a factor. I would even be willing to not talk about the age issue if it meant both groups would work together. Basically ID groups says Darwin's mechanism is not sufficient to explain the complexity of life. Someone or something Organized it in such a way as to make it work. They imply there is a god but do nothing to explain “who” or what God did it. And I agree we can’t say based on science who the creator is.
*Creationist says the bible has the best explanation of life and we explain the facts based on that.

There is so much that could be said. At least this one is shorter then the last one. :)

Good stuff here. There's far more than we'll be able to resolve between us. Folks, feel free to back up or debunk Jeremy's material here. It's a real treasure trove.

I really had no idea how many creation museums there are in America; Ken Ham's one gets all the publicity.

I can guess without looking (though I will look) that there will be an extensively-written case supporting, and several rejecting, each of the fossils you're on about: the giant thigh bone, the human-dinosaur footprints, etc. I know why you think they're not accepted by mainstream science: reluctance to accept God. Okay. But what do you propose to do about that? Your speeches may convince some people, but how do you and other creationists intend to bring mainstream science around? Force of majority? Prove a particular flagship miracle? What?

Yep, radiocarbon dating has had issues. That's why about 18 other kinds of radiometric dating are in use. I've been through the margins of error required for any of them to be inaccurate enough to allow for 6000-year-old dinosaurs. I agree with you nevertheless that proving a young earth would render the theory of evolution useless.

You really ought to have finished that definition of religion: “A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs." A Creator, as it says here, is expected the majority of the time. Further, naturalism is not at all concerned with the ultimate purpose of the universe. Purpose implies will.

You're lucky you're not actually making a legal statement when you quote Rehnquist and Scalia as representatives of the Supreme Court. Creation science is not science according to the Supreme Court; just the opposite. It is merely science according to two of the nine judges at the time. That can happen in a body which does not require a unanimous vote.

You mis-apply the first law of thermodynamics. Matter cannot be created, let alone create itself. In order to posit a Creator, you immediately have to break that law, so how can you use it to rule anything else out? The Big Bang, as I have tried to say, need not have been a creation at all but simply a major event in an eternal history. This is in fact my opinion. You do not need a beginning at all. If not for God, why the universe?

Asimov's expression of the second law of thermodynamics is incomplete. The universe cannot get less disorderly, but it may stay level. It isn't losing energy (as I've said elsewhere, how can energy leave the universe?) so any increase in entropy may be balanced out by a decrease elsewhere. Transfer of energy allows exchange of local entropy, as the sun's light allows life to flourish. Compare that to Creation: starting with nothing, you get one massive decrease in entropy. And then you've got to apply the same laws to the Creator.

You're not abiding by these laws, Jeremy, you're just choosing how to break them in a way which suits your bias. I'm trying to keep them intact.

I do understand that the DI wants to distance itself from open creation science. And you're right, not only are many on the list not creationists but some are evolutionists trying to get taken off. I still think they would have found more scientists willing to own up to a position less extreme than full creationism if there are ten thousand full-blown creation scientists.

Again, thanks for the references.

So God made the laws after he created everything...were they in effect during of the Fifth Day, after the creation of plants and during the creation of animals but before the creation of humans? If so, was he breaking them then? If not, how did the plants' molecular structure last before thermodynamics existed? And when God reversed the entropy in Jesus' body to bring him back to life, or when Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes, how did that hold to the laws?

As I said, even if a god is outside of the system, its actions are either within it or irrelevant, and must be held to the same laws as everything else. It's pointless to hold any non-theistic position to these laws if your position regards them as malleable, or able to be pre-dated by an action.

Of course we can never catch all of the heat and energy our world emits, and much of it is radiating out to the edge of the cosmos. Maybe, since it then can't escape, it is doing work at the edge. You do need something drastic to reclaim that energy for the middle though. The whole universe coming back together to one spot, like what possibly happened before the Big Bang, would suffice.

The prime cosmological question concerning the future is whether the universe will continue outward and reach heat death or return to the singularity in a Big Crunch, and possibly bounce. If the latter is true, perhaps it's already happened. The hypothesis of the cyclical universe has therefore always allowed for time before the Big Bang, and after the reverse event.

Instead, this universe might not be cyclical at all, and be running down for good. What if it creates another universe in the process? What if ours came about in the same way by a previous universe? If this universe has a beginning, perhaps it's not really all there is? This is where the idea of a multiverse comes in. It's completely speculative, but the objects suggested are simply multiple instances of an object confirmed to exist (a universe) rather than an object never before confirmed (a god). That's why I prefer the multiverse to a god, if this is a universe doomed to heat death.

The choice we face, Jeremy, is not God vs nothing. That's another false dilemma. It is God vs anything else. When Guth proposes that the universe came from nothing (full article here),
he's nice enough to explain how in great detail. As you will agree, however, no amount of intelligence might stop him from being wrong. If so, there's still a multitude of multiple-universe models battling it out.

Accepted science does change. The theory of evolution itself is constantly getting more detailed as the behaviour of various populations becomes known. What does not tend to happen is a theory going back to a previous state that's any more than about a century old. If a major model changes, it's because enough evidence has accumulated contradicting it that once it does change, there's a mountain of empirical support for it from the get-go. The accepted young earth hypothesis held out as long as it could. It's ruled and been toppled once already. Now that it's out of favour, it gets as many appeals as it wants but it's got a long way to go. Among its strategies, as you say, is to redefine science itself to suit its needs.

Looks like I was off about the Dissent from Darwinism list. Those who wanted to be taken off have been, like Robert C. Davidson. It's still small though. I might as well drop it and ask the direct question: where does the ICR get its figure of ten thousand creation scientists?

Oi, I said I would read the links, didn't I? My time for this pursuit is limited, especially after writing here.

- Dr Patton's Malachite Man find (that's your link) is not without dissent, especially by the next guy who investigated the site, John Marwitt. The colour of the bones for instance is likely just that, a surface discolouration. Much of what Patton says in the video you've already quoted here, concerning radiometric dating, marine invertebrates and the fossil record in general.
- The Mt Blanco museum's giant femur (not humerus - my mistake) is a sculpture. It is in fact modeled on a Malachite Man female's femur, on an increased scale. They never had a giant bone, they just worked from a story by a Mr Jack Wagner of his travels in south-east Turkey. The whole thing is plaster and hearsay. Now if you'd found a surviving bone in Turkey...
- Read Loeb's actual New Scientist article on star formation, rather than relying on AiG's quotes from it. The article does in fact present a potential way to solve the pressure problem via chemical coolants among the raw materials. Here's a very well-referenced external response, while I'm at it.
- I was researching individual claims from Psarris' presentation and discovered something: Venus' rotation isn't retrograde at all. It's simply slower than its orbital rotation around the Sun. It's being turned faster in one direction by its overall movement than it can turn itself in the other. So all that had to happen was that its own rotation slowed down.

I'm glad I went through that lot (I will continue to do so on my own time) and I'm sorry I took so long to get to it.

A few final things:

- It'll take you two minutes to learn how to use HTML links (the a href kind) and they function in comments here.
- I'm in Brisbane, Australia.
- No need to capitalise "atheism".
- And please, what is your site's URL?

Just for clarity sake. One a few things I mentioned.

When I say Bias I mean, some start with the bias "there is no God" and then after looking at the evidence come to conclusions that agree with that bias. "Their is no god so the stars must have formed on their own through some process of development"
We start with the bias "there is a God" and we look at the evidence and come to conclusions that agree with that "God created the stars complete from nothing"

When I believed in the old earth I thought all scientist where unbiased, and whatever they said must be true.
But then I realized that no one can be completely unbiased.

How could anyone make a decision at all with out first assuming something?
And no fact speaks for itself. We all look at them and determine what they mean to us based on what we assume to start with. I don't think anyone disagrees that a flood would create fossils and lay down layers. What they disagree with is was there a global flood at all.

Time is not a substance you can measure. So no evidence could prove the age of the earth. YEC often use uniformitarism assumptions to show the earth can't be billions of years old.
You said there are lots of ways to measure age. And I agree there are hundreds of ways to estimate age. Answers in Genesis has a list of over 100 processes that can be used to estimate the age of the earth. less then 10% give an age of billions of years.

I am not sure I understand what

I am not sure I understand what you mean about God breaking
the rules. Let me explain in another way to be more clear then have you respond.

A computer programmer designs a program to function a
certain way. The program itself could never break the rules set up by the
programmer. I am suggested that God is able as a programmer is able to alter his
program. and there doesn't seem to be any real feasible explanation for nature
making itself.
 I am basically asking you the same question you asked me
but from the other side. You say why does it have to be God? I am saying Why not
God? Why such an objection to the concept of the divine. The programmer
certainly could change something to fit whatever he desires for the program to
do. Including adding new features like animals and plants.
Maybe we are thinking about it in different ways. But I
think it is logically to conclude that such a system as the universe which
certainly has laws that govern it would have a law maker. So why discount the
possibility that God created if it is a possible explanation?
What I am trying to conclude is “God creating” would fit
all we see and it is only ignored because we aren't satisfied with "God made
it”.
You said (and we agree on this) that God is the simplest
explanation. I do however recognize you were disagreeing with my use of
Occam’s razor.
It states that the explanation of any

phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those
that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory

hypothesis or

theory.
Rather then assume the universe is infinite beyond a Big
Bang (which may have come for other Bang's etc) I am saying God is the simplest
explanation for origins. That doesn't change the way we do empirical science. It
only effects our worldview. What you believe about origins effects how you live
your life and what you think about life itself. it is not difficult to make
anything agree with what one already believes. I will use one more full quote to
explain what I think is happening in the science community.

"We take the side
of science in spite
of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs,
in spite
of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life,
in spite
of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated
just-so-stories, because we
have a prior commitment,
a commitment to materialism.

It is
not
that the methods and institutions of
science
somehow compel
us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world But,
on the contrary, that we are forced by a prior adherence to material
causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that
produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive,
no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, hat materialism
is an absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door"
Richard
Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” The New York Review,
January 9, 1997, p. 31
I think his message is clear
even when the evidence doesn't fit "we can not allow a divine foot in
the door".  If you teach it this way the next generation
comes up believing science is naturalism.  Then they go on to
interpret it that way. and in just a few generations you get a majority
whom by default must believe in a naturalist interpretation because "we
can not allow a divine foot in the door".
I watched your video on
"what is an atheist". I understand better what you think about belief,
in that you say "we are without belief". But I only want to quibble on
this once more by saying that since we can never prove either don't you
have to believe something about origins? You can't know, therefor you
must believe something. It is impossible to be without belief in
something, God or any number of other things even pantheism is belief. I
understand Christians believe God, But by removing God you must believe
nature has the ability to create itself. 
I get the idea of
naturalism as religion first from Dr Donald Chittick in a presentation
he gave at a creation conference. Then Dr Henry Morris's book "The long
war against God" explains in great detail how evolutionism is a
religion. But almost all creationist call evolution a religion so I hear
it often. I don't remember Lee calling evolutionism or naturalism a
religion though he may have.
Even evolutionist have
called evolution a religion. My favorite quote on religion...

Michael Ruse, "Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more
than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular
religion-a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with its meaning
and morality…Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the
beginning, and is true of evolution still today." National Post,
5/13/2000, p.B-3.
Even the courts of America
have named atheism as a religion. Court rules atheism a religion:
"A federal court of appeals ruled yesterday Wisconsin prison officials
violated an inmate's rights because they did not treat atheism as a
religion. "Atheism is [the inmate's] religion…even though it expressly
rejects a belief in a supreme being," the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
said." August 20, 2005, WorldNetDaily.com
I have read a little of
Dawkins book the blind watchmaker. Which I found interesting. On the
very first page he says
Biology is
the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been
designed for a purpose." The Blind Watchmaker, p.1
I am aware of his teaching.
From our perspective He would be like the pastor/Bishop of atheism. I
also know he is a strong anti-creationist.
I also watched the
presentation you sent by him. He is right about two things. He does
believe in a god of nature. And he is also right that no one would go to
a church where a lump of coal is God. :)
I will send a message here
if I post this on my website. I just have to decide where I would put
it, being that it is almost 40 pages long. I want to present it in a way
that people actually try to read it all. My predictions remain the same
"some will believe, some will walk away and others will ask for more on
this matter". But we all will find out one day if we be right or wrong.

I want to address one more
thing you mentioned several pages ago. You said "why doesn't God just
come down and prove himself". If God is who he says he is He has nothing
to prove. Creation is proof. It's like me says "I have never seen
President Bush so I don't believe he is real" he would never feel
compelled to come and appease my arrogant request. I had to first come
to Him then he reveals himself to me (Jesus that is). And I have never
been the same since. You don't have to "fall out" or see a bright light.
But ask any born again Christian and they will tell you  it is
something you know is done when it happens. I could list many things God
has done for me but God doesn't want anyone to come for what he can do
for them. But what he already did for them.
I can't say it enough
thanks again for hearing me out, and discussing this openly on your
website.
Jeremy Fielding
Should someone have a
question they don't want to post here my email is
[email protected]

I understand how you see God in relation to the universe in this context, but temporarily changing or "reprogramming" the rules in order to achieve that which they forbid is just another way of circumventing them. It says the same thing as any other hypothesis which requires this: there is a way around the rules if you have the right qualities.

In God's case the qualities are omnipotence and omniscience, which outrank mere familiarity with the "program". In some Big Bang and even black hole models the quality is extreme density and the idea that it may invalidate certain laws of physics near the centre of mass. In superstring theory it's the feature of seven or eight spatial dimensions on top of the familiar three.

As for the universe creating itself, it's another false dilemma to compare that alone with divine Creation. The hypothesis of eternal time posits that the universe was never created at all, and maintains a balance of entropy to stay within the second law of thermodynamics. The multiverse hypotheses (there are many) suggest this universe emerged from another universe, and that the whole group of universes is collectively eternal and perhaps physically infinite.

God does look like the simplest explanation, and I would have said as much, until you then have to explain God. Here, Jeremy, is "why such an objection to the concept of the divine", and why we disagree on usage of Ockham's razor. The razor as plainly stated treats all assumptions as equal; a god such as Yahweh is a single assumption which encompasses the most complex, exotic entity imaginable without relying on positive evidence in the slightest. The fact that Ockham himself was a Fransiscan friar may help to explain the razor's bias towards fewer, larger assumptions.

Having made this one gigantic assumption, we are expected to simply stop. We're meant to accept the existence of this enormous thing and, rather than investigate its nature and origins like we do for everything else, merely ponder its intentions as we defend it against doubters. Taken as a scientific explanation for anything, it is unique to the point where we have to fight over whether it is a scientific explanation.

With your invocation of the old "lawmaker" chestnut, we move at last from the cosmological argument to the transcendental argument. My responses to this are much the same: just because the source of the laws isn't known doesn't mean it's a god, or that they have a source at all. I've gone into more depth elsewhere.

On another topic, I'm fine with atheism being a religion for legal purposes because it gives atheists a chance at the same privileges as the religious: tax exemptions for its organisations, protection from discrimination and so on. (Not that it's actually gotten that far.) I'd prefer of course that people legally without a religion could have these things on secular grounds and religions didn't get special treatment at all, but until that happens I'll take what I can get.

You seem to equate a belief with an opinion if you think nobody can be without one on any subject they consider. It just means your definition of belief is broader than mine. If you'd also classify every "belief" as religious faith, then everyone's religious to you and that's that. It doesn't stop us from discussing the relative merits of each "belief".

You say God has nothing to prove, and then you say Creation is proof. You have this tremendous list of archaeological, geological, astronomical and Biblical claims, each of which is supposed to be a proof of God in its own roundabout way, and when they are not accepted you rule out anything more direct happening because God can't be bothered. You may be dead right, but I hope you see why your explanation inspires skepticism.

Thankyou for not going into your personal experiences of God and Jesus. Such is the evidential value of such experiences that they amount to little more than preaching, and I'd rather keep that to a minimum.

Again, nice discussing with you.