Right = the Short-Age Creationist explanation is

(a) we don't know why things are the way they are, AND
(b) we don't know why they look like they are very old

BUT we are absolutely certain that

(a) we have the right Books, AND
(b) we have the right translation of the Books, AND
(c) we have the right understanding of that translation

In short, short-age creationism is based on a simplistic understanding of the Bible, and a willingness to accept the understanding regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

It is easier for me to believe that an honest God does not create a deception

/Bevin

Creationists do not believe He does and those that claim otherwise demonstrate they do not grasp the creationist world view.

I can understand naturalists without insulting or degrading them - some creationists cannot. There are some naturalists (like Ronald Numbers) that can understand creationists without insulting and degrading them - most cannot not. Yet if we are going to have a healthy exchange of ideas, it is crucial that we not insult and degrade each other for the philosophy held.

That said, I do point out to some compromising Christians that mixing world views is, in many cases, unbiblical. Some consider that to be an insult. I do not. Pointing out that a person's ideas are not Biblical is not saying the person is wrong, stupid or ignorant. It is simply pointing out that their ideas are not Biblical. I allow for the possibility that the Bible itself is wrong - although I do not believe it is.

Which statement do short-age creationists disagree with.

(a) God created the Earth
(b) The Earth looks old

Usually they disagree with (b). But (b) is true. The EVIDENCE for a millions of years of life on earth has been thoroughly examined by many people.

Even the AiG people agree that the life on earth LOOKS old. They are trying to find an alternative explanation for how the evidence would ALSO match a creation model.

But that is not the problem. The problem is "why does it LOOK OLD?". It is not the eye-of-the-beholder, there are far too many beholders and far too much evidence for that.

Here is an overview of a SMALL PORTION of the stuff that appears old...


Rocks can be categorized by their chemicals and their structure. The major categories reflect their origin – igneous from volcanoes etc, sedimentary from depositions of eroded material, and metamorphic from the heat/pressure transformations of existing rocks.

Huge layers of rocks clearly show indications of being pushed, folded, crushed, eroded, and metamorphosed. Since sedimentary rocks have been metamorphosed by plate tectonics, and since those processes take millions of years, most metamorphosed sedimentary rocks can not have come from an event in the last ten thousand years.

To fold mountains requires high pressures AND high temperatures. There is not enough time in the short-age model for the mountains to have cooled down.

There are chains of volcanoes at various locations in the world, the Hawaiian Islands for example. These chains show more than ten thousand years of continental drift.

The igneous rocks have magnetic fields imprinted in them. One such instance is the magnetic field in rocks around the Mid-Atlantic rift. These fields apparently come from more than ten thousand years of magnetic reversals. http://istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/reversal.htm

Various radiometric measurements can be made in rocks, and can be used to estimate the age of the rock. http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resources/Wiens.html (covers other methods also)

There are 174 positively identified craters from meteors. They range from 15meters to 300 kilometers across. http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/

Meteorites are found all over the Earth, but they are easy to find and well-preserved in Antarctica. http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/antmet/index.cfm

There are rocks on the ocean floor around Antarctica, carried there by glaciers turning into icebergs. It would take hundreds of thousands of years to transport them there at the current rate.

There are many species on the Earth today – about 1.5 million currently named and classified. There are guesstimates of a further 2M – 50M not yet identified.

Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks and in metamorphic rock that came from sedimentary rocks

The fossil species appear in groupings in the rocks. These groupings are consistent with the patterns of deposition, erosion, folding, crushing, movement. These groupings are often common in the lower layers of rock from two different continents, but differ in the upper layers.

The White Cliffs of Dover are part of a huge chalk formation under all of the UK, into the North Sea, containing huge numbers of fossils. They are about 500 meters thick. The fossils in the lower layers differ in appearance from those in the top layers.
http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/chalkformationfossils.htm
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i1/chalk.asp

Ice cores drilled from both Antarctic and Arctic ice show hundreds of thousands of distinct layers.

Glass – either man-made or natural volcanic – slowly absorbs water. The amount absorbed can thus be used to estimate the time elapsed since the glass was made.
http://archserve.id.ucsb.edu/Anth3/Courseware/Chronology/10_Obsidian_Hydration.html

Archaeological sites contain ceramics. Heating these materials causes them to emit light. The amount of photons emitted is a measure of how long since the material was last heated. This can also be done to lava. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoluminescence

Archaeological sites contain charcoal. The carbon content of materials is made up of two major isotopes, with different half-lifes. The carbon in the atmosphere is affected by solar radiation, and has a different ratio of these two isotopes than we find in materials not so affected. We find in new materials made from atmospheric carbon have this same ratio, but old materials don’t. http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae403.cfm

DNA can be sequenced, and the sequences can be compared. There are many similarities between the DNA of similar appearing organisms, some between disparate organisms, and a wide range of DNA.

Very similar cell mechanisms are used for wildly different purposes – the result of evolution tinkering to create the new mechanism.


/Bevin

You have well stated the issue IMO. As for (1), agreed. As for (2) well one should always be open. As for (3) Many assumptions may be involved, whatever a person's viewpoint.



Perhaps. Or, maybe the text supports a simple translation and understanding.



Alternatively, recognizing that the evidence could be interpreted in more than one way.



But why would God's creating the earth as mature, and the organisms as mature, have to be a deception?

The issue is NOT that the Earth is created "mature" - the issue is

(a) The organisms APPEAR to have evolved

(b) The rocks APPEAR to have had life in them for millions of years

(c) The evidences of human habitation APPEAR to show it >20,000 years

Why, given a literal understanding of Genesis, do humans APPEAR to have been around for >20,000 years.

Why, for those people that believed whales and elephants did not die before the Fall, does it APPEAR that whales and elephants have been dying for millions of years?

/Bevin

This really reflects the opinion of someone that does not understand or grasp the creationist world view.



This is simply inaccurate. The AiG people write books and make TV and radio programs showing example after example of evidence for a young earth. I would say that Adventists are more willing to say the earth is old than the folks at AiG are.

It really does come down to philosophy. A naturalist will look at the world and see an old world. A creationist will look at the world in see a young world. The evidence is the same. The philosophies are different.



Yes, there are far more people, especially in academia, that have a naturalist world view than a creationist world view. The argument made here is that the naturalists out number the creationists so much that they must be right. That argument doesn't hold water. There are many examples throughout history of when those in the minority have been right.

It is a bit simplistic to say it is the "eye of the beholder" because the philosophies are so far apart from each other that it goes far beyond the five senses. But that is an easy way for many to understand it. The naturalist looks at the fossil record and sees evidence of millions of years. To the naturalist that is evidence for an old earth. The creationist looks at the same fossil record and sees evidence of a global flood. To the creationist, it is evidence for the reliability of the Bible. With such a difference in world views, saying the difference is in the eye of the beholder is a bit of an understatement.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1866.asp

Ham writes:
Once I accept the plain words of Scripture in context, the fact of ordinary days, no death before sin, the Bible’s genealogies, etc., all make it clear that I cannot accept millions or billions of years of history. Therefore, I would conclude there must be something wrong with man’s ideas about the age of the universe.

In short, he is deliberately choosing to ignore the obvious interpretation

In places like
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/carbon_dating.asp
they agree on the basic data, but they don't agree on the interpretation




If that is what they see, then they are simply ignoring 99% of the actual evidence and seeing just what they want to see

As I have frequently pointed out, every short-age creationist can see the White Cliffs of Dover, and not one can explain them

/Bevin

Again, a lack of understanding of the creationist philosophy or world view. The creationist does not accept the naturalist assumptions upon which they interpret the evidence.

Both creationists and naturalists are guilty of circular reasoning.


This is also true in regard to the fossil record and the flood. Creationists are not ignoring 99% of the evidence at all. They are rejecting 99% of the naturalistic assumptions made in respect to the fossil record.

• Creationists reject that we have a C14:C12 starting point for carbon dating prior to the flood that would allow us to accurately date fossils which lived prior to the flood.
• Creationists reject that the sedimentary rock layers were formed gradually.
• Creationists reject that we know how much of a parent element and daughter element was in a given rock at its creation.
• Creationists reject that radioactive decay has always been at the same rate.
• Creationists reject the entire idea of uniformitarianism (as does the Bible) - which is the backbone of natural science.

It is no wonder the evidence says two different things to the two different groups.

It is not that the evidence speaks in favor of naturalism and creationists try to rationalize it and come up with wacky theories to do so. The evidence is neutral. It neither favors creationism or naturalism. Creationists do not ignore evidence anymore than naturalists do.

According to the Bible, the evidence "speaks" in favor of creation and naturalists are willingly ignorant. They choose not to see what nature reveals. Many creationists will zealously present that.

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:20-22)

I am not quite that zealous. I think many naturalists believe what they do because they have been taught to believe it is true and do not grasp or understand the creationist perspective. However going back a couple of centuries, the scientific community did decided to look for only natural explanations and not allow the supernatural to be considered. Romans 1:22 does speak well to that.

BTW: the panda's thumb can be explained by natural selection, which is not owned by naturalists. Edward Blyth, a creationist, actually wrote about natural selection before Charles Darwin. The two were contemporaries. Darwin admired Blyth's views on natural selection but disagreed with his creationist beliefs.

Unfortunately for Creationists, the C14 dating is only one of several methods of dating an archaelogical site. Dating methods include
(a) C14 dating
(b) Thermoluminescence
(c) Glass (Obsidian) Hydration
(d) Tree rings
(e) Ice cores
(f) Deposit depth
(g) Astronomical events
(h) Historical records

4,000 years ago simply is not that long ago, and lots of these methods reach far earlier than that - and they agree with each other!



So do evolutionists. The layers are a combination of steady and rapid deposition and erosion. Unfortunately there are sometimes ways telling which it was, and the shear volume of material in the White Cliffs of Dover show that it can not have been laid down in just a few weeks.



This is the "God created the world looking old" argument. It leads directly to the "why did God make it look like life has evolved?" question.



The rate is NOT an arbitrary number that you can just fiddle with to change the age of the rocks - it affects how hot the Sun is, how hot the Earth is, how much background radiation there is, mutation rates, and possibly chemical reaction rates...



Only by claiming rates of beneficial mutation creation and selection far HIGHER than the evolutionists measure.

/Bevin