Help finding sources for creationist arguments

[b00tleg]

I've been reading some various evolution vs creationism forums lately and the brand of idiotship that constitutes creationists is astounding. I'm in need of some help as to where to look for the bible passages that they are using as a foundation for their arguments.

I did come across evowiki which had some great info on creationist arguments and their related fallacies. One in paticular that evowiki covers in part is the "Were you there" arguement. I've been reading a debate thread about whether the great flood occured or not, the creationist side of it is stating things like "the past earth was different enough that radiometric dating isn't reliable since we don't know how much of the isotope there was and could have decayed at a different rate then what it does today....etc"

He stated the bible as evidence but never cited any passages from it and somehow I've closed that tab on the debate and now I'm unable to find it. I'm heading to bed so if anyone has encountered these type of creationist arguments could you point me in the right direction as which passages supposedly states this. The debate I'm referring is at EvC http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/Threads ... ion=tf&f=8 if I can find the right debate I'll update here.

Thanks,
b00tleg

[Rahvin]

I've been reading some various evolution vs creationism forums lately and the brand of idiotship that constitutes creationists is astounding. I'm in need of some help as to where to look for the bible passages that they are using as a foundation for their arguments.

I did come across evowiki which had some great info on creationist arguments and their related fallacies. One in paticular that evowiki covers in part is the "Were you there" arguement. I've been reading a debate thread about whether the great flood occured or not, the creationist side of it is stating things like "the past earth was different enough that radiometric dating isn't reliable since we don't know how much of the isotope there was and could have decayed at a different rate then what it does today....etc"

He stated the bible as evidence but never cited any passages from it and somehow I've closed that tab on the debate and now I'm unable to find it. I'm heading to bed so if anyone has encountered these type of creationist arguments could you point me in the right direction as which passages supposedly states this. The debate I'm referring is at EvC http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/Threads ... ion=tf&f=8 if I can find the right debate I'll update here.

Thanks,
b00tleg

Hi b00tleg,

I'm not sure which topic at EvC you're referring to, but it sounds like one of the radiometric dating threads. Was it this one?

The "you weren't there, so you don't know" argument is utterly retarded for a variety of reasons, the most obvious being that all of forensics and criminal justice must be discarded unless there is an eyewitness, as otherwise "nobody was there, so nobody knows who killed him." As anyone with even the barest layman's grasp of criminal justice knows, eyewitnesses are typically far less reliable than the forensic science that somehow manages to tell us what happened even though "we weren't there." Your opponent is basically trying to dismiss real evidence as useless and subjective, while trying to replace it with the Bible, an unsupported conglomeration of stonage fairy tales granted credence only because of its age and its widespread acceptance by those willing to accept "faith" as rational. Don't let him.

Just ask your opponent how you would determine the identity of a murderer. Would you perhaps check for fingerprints at the scene? DNA tests for skin under the victim's fingernails? Fingerprints on the murder weapon, etc? All of those are examples of objective evidence that can be gathered to create a case against an individual, in effect telling us what happened even though we "weren't there, so we don't know." Be sure to bring up the fact that certainty is not the goal, because that isn't even possible with an eyewitness (who can be deceived easily). Accuracy is the goal, and while we cannot learn anything about the past with absolute certainty, we can extablish a highly accurate model of the past by examining evidence today.

For radiometric decay rates in particular...well, YECs don't tend to realize it, but you can't just fuddle with decay rates without consequences. We would be able to detect evidence of accelerated decay rates pretty easily, and on the level they require, with billions of years of decay squeezing into just a few thousand years at the most, the heat from all of that radioactivity would have made the Earth a very different place. I don't have exact numbers, but the heat from decaying radioisotopes is not negligible, and if you try to squeeze the decay by 4-6 orders of magnitude, it adds up to a pretty inhospitable world.

Then we get into the mechanisms involved - what caused the radioactive decay rates to slow down to the levels we see today? Inevitably, the answer is "magic," meaning their attempt at apologetics fails to match with reality at all. Your opponent is trying to bend, warp, and ignore the evidence until it supports his preconceived idea, not following the evidence to
a logical conclusion.

If the thread I saw was the one you were referring to, this is likely the post in question:

The stock YEcreationist response is that the decay rates changed, and thus all you are seeing is the result of fast decay rather than long time.

Makes sense if you take genesis literally you could have 3,000 to 4,000 years of accelerated decay. The sun became a light on day 1 according to some creationists 13,000 years ago. It was not a light unto the earth according to genesis for those first 3 creationists days (3,000 years) thus the sun just a star was likely like a torch in the sky could of been producing excessive amounts of gamma radiation, a much greater magnetic field, causing an acceleration of decay as part of the creation of the earth and the atmosphere until day 4 when the sun was made a light unto the earth.

It was not until day 4 that the sun according to some creationists the sun was made a light unto the earth the present slower decay rates, and the ever weakening magnetic fields of the earth.

P.S. Uniformitists assume the sun has been a star more than 13,000 years but if the young earth creationists are right and the sun became a star approximately 13,000 years ago on creation day 1 and was not a light unto the earth until day 4 you have 3,000 to 4,000 years of accelerated decay possible from their point of view happening on the earth explaining the appearance of age but not the age of the earth.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Remedial treatment of nucleur wastes are looking to gamma radiation, proton acceleration, higher magnetic fields, photons " not neutrons or alpha radiation" to accelerate uranium decay rates, to treat nuke wastes, etc...

http://www.rexresearch.com/coldfusn/nukwast.htm

In a few major bursts, the sun produces gamma rays with energies up to one million electron volts. The interaction of high-energy electrons, protons, and nuclei of the sun, emit the rays.

http://www.smgaels.org/physics/gamm_1.htm

In this case...just start mocking him. Honestly. johnfolton is batshit insane. He's been suspended there multiple times already, and his post shows a clear lack of understanding of the way radioactivity works, and a lack of concern over the consequences of such a model and the fact that we don't detect evidence of those consequences.

He's not going to be able to provide a Biblical quote to support his insanity. In fact, the Bible contradicts him, as "let there be light" comes before the creation of the Sun and Moon, not days later. But john won't see this as a setback. Like I said, he's not sane, even worse than most Creationists.

Don't ask him to support his biblical claims, as it's in a science forum and so the Bible is not permissible as evidence. Focus on the consequences of an increased rate of decay, and ask him where the evidence of this decay is located. You'll never convince john, but you can make him look like a bigger idiot.

[b00tleg]

thanks for the response, sorry it took longer then I thought to find the thread but here it is http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi? ... &t=162&m=1 Sorry for not linking the correct thread.

This debate threat at EvC is already closed so I can't debate the person but while reading through it I was completely overcome with some of the "claims" that "simple," arguing for the creationist side was making. I haven't even read the thread completely b/c of this guy's batshit claims of earth somehow existing in "a different past which means it was a different world." I admit, my understanding of science is general and probably at a simple and basic level, never having gone beyond high school. But this guy's ravings set my bullshit meter off.

My hat goes off to RAZD, who was arguing the reality side of the arguement that "The purpose of this thread for me will to present evidence for the case that the age of the earth as portrayed in the museum is false and that a global flood could not have occurred withing that time (or any reasonable approximation), and for you to defend the age and flood occurrence as portrayed with whatever evidence or argument you wish to make." RAZD goes to above and beyond in presenting evidence, citing sources, educating the douchebag about tree rings and how they can measure them to determine the age of a tree and even can seperate false rings from the real ones and so forth...etc

"Simple's" ravings in that thread are just astounding. Anyhow, I was hoping to find some info as where this guy was pulling his biblical interpertations so I could at least try to understand how he could think such things.