Happy Birthday Everything

[JBG]

According to some creationists the earth was created on this day 4004 BC. Maybe they all say it but generally I filter out such as noise but enjoying the paradise that is Sydney morning traffic and having played the CDs in the car (Black Sabbath, Butthole Surfers, Jane's Addiction and Motorhead) ad nauseam I was trapped by the sheer effrontery of a doctor of physics justifying this august occasion!

Oh well. I have come across worse excuses for raising a beer to planet earth's robust infancy.

[LaCroix]

You could make a holiday out of it. You Aussies use about every rationale to get a day off

[Simon_Jester]

According to some creationists the earth was created on this day 4004 BC. Maybe they all say it but generally I filter out such as noise but enjoying the paradise that is Sydney morning traffic and having played the CDs in the car (Black Sabbath, Butthole Surfers, Jane's Addiction and Motorhead) ad nauseam I was trapped by the sheer effrontery of a doctor of physics justifying this august occasion!

Just from curiosity, what do you mean 'justify'?

[JBG]

According to some creationists the earth was created on this day 4004 BC. Maybe they all say it but generally I filter out such as noise but enjoying the paradise that is Sydney morning traffic and having played the CDs in the car (Black Sabbath, Butthole Surfers, Jane's Addiction and Motorhead) ad nauseam I was trapped by the sheer effrontery of a doctor of physics justifying this august occasion!

Just from curiosity, what do you mean 'justify'?

"justify" may not have been the most appropriate term to use. Good catch Simon.

A doctor of physics who is the point man for a local creationist group - creation science or some such - was being interviewed on radio station 2BL, an ABC station. The interviewer, Adam Spencer, seems to be a mathematician by trade or inclination though he is a very good comedian. He asked why the good doctor had no problem with particle physics, inferring astronomical studies, but had a problem with fossils from the point of view of empirical observation. The good doctor replied that he could witness in real time particle physics phenomena he could not do so with regard to fossils, ie he was not there to observe the creatures that we examine as fossils.

So support would be a better term than justify.

Having been brought up with an uncle with masters degrees in divinity and aeronautical engineering who considers creationism crap probably illustrates why the intellectual effrontery of the good doctor appalled me.

[weemadando]

Honours in Pure Mathematics and being a world ranked debater will generally make Adam Specer an adequate adversary for any creationist.

[UnderAGreySky]

If you will indulge me this copypasta, from Gaiman and Pratchett's Good Omens

Current theories on the creation of the Universe state that, if it was created at all and didn't just start, as it were, unofficially, it came into being between ten and twenty thousand million years ago. By the same token the earth itself is generally supposed to be about four and a half thousand million years old.

These dates are incorrect.

Medieval Jewish scholars put the date of the Creation at 3760 B.C. Greek Orthodox theologians put Creation as far back as 5508 B.C.

These suggestions are also incorrect.

Archbishop James Usher (1580-1656) published Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti in 1654, which suggested that the Heaven and the Earth were created in 4004 B.C. One of his aides took the calculation further, and was able to announce triumphantly that the Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at exactly 9:00 A.M., because God liked to get work done early in the morning while he was feeling fresh.

This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour.

The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur skeletons was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet.

This proves two things:

Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players,* to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infi nite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

Secondly, the Earth's a Libra.