My Discussion with an Atheist – Part 3
This is part three of my New Year’s Facebook discussion with atheist John. Jim, a mutual friend, had asked me to help him show John the truth of God in terms of creation. I thought it might be a wonderful example of things you may want to watch out for when you are discussing origins with a non-believer. I made many errors in this debate. But ultimately, I gave it a try to help a lost soul find the truth that God has so plainly put in front of us. I have tried to make things easy to follow, and to that point, it is somewhat edited for clarification (misspellings, etc.). John’s comments are in Blue and mine remain in Black. I have made comments after the fact in Red.
Jerry: Let’s try something. How would you go about telling me how old a piece of moldy bread is?
Like · Reply · December 31, 2017 at 3:38pm
John: Jerry I have an app on my phone for that.
Like · Reply · December 31, 2017 at 3:43pm
(John never went to learn about the dating techniques and he never told me how he would go about determining the age of the moldy bread. I will go through an example of how I would do it later, but I should simply just give up at this point. There is plenty left in the discussion, and I will continue to comment because it has merit for teaching purposes, but there comes a time when you just need to let it go. This is the time. It will take me two and a half days to do that, and it still doesn’t end.)
Jerry: Humor me.
Like · Reply · December 31, 2017 at 4:39pm
John: Jerry happy new year Jerry!! I really enjoyed our discussion ? and respect your intelligent opinions and delivery. Although I have a lot of issues with the Bible, Christianity and religion, I am an agnostic when it comes to how life started as we know it today. We agree the micro-evolution is real, but macro-evolution does not make sense since unproven. Does not seem at all likely that dogs can eventually produce cats, but it also seems unlikely the all white people can eventually produce black people. (There are actually black couples who have produced white babies and white couples who have produced black babies. It is simply a matter of melanin expression within the genes.)
However, when it comes to this topic only, if the Bible said that God created the universe and life millions of years ago, then humans 6000 years ago, I would have a much easier time believing this.
I still don’t believe in a lot of things in Bible we already discussed like virgin birth, resurrection, heaven, hell, Noah’s ark, claim that earth is a flat circle, unicorns, slavery is ok, gays are bad, men are better than women, blind faith, prayers, control, brainwashing, bad priests that abuse children, religious people including Vatican who take people’s money and use it for themselves, and the long list of physical harm religion has caused.
It’s the macro evolution versus creation part that I just don’t know, but could believe either way. Thoughts?
Like · Reply · January 1 at 11:00am
(The most important tenet of John’s belief system and he doesn’t know. Yet he has taken me on a ride for two days.)
John: However, if I had to pick one side, I would still pick evolution. We have found many intermediary fossils for animals and primates. Many Animals on Madagascar and Australia appear nowhere else in the world. Tree rings have been proven to be much older than 10,000 years. I don’t agree that your daughter ion argument is the reason thousands of dating scientists are always wrong.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 1:00pm
(Land bridges are the best explanation for this, much like the naturalists believe. And there are no known intermediate fossils to date.)
Jerry: If you would humor me as I requested above, I will be able to clearly show you the problems with dating techniques.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 1:02pm
Jerry: And I know you would still believe the evolution tale. Most people do because that is what is taught as gospel in schools. Heckels’ (sic) embryo evolution is still taught, surprisingly enough even through it was proven wrong decades ago; Lucy was proven to be an ape and not remotely human decades ago, but is still presented as a transition between ape and man. But If you do the moldy bread exercise, i can show you why billions of years is wrong.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 1:06pm
(For some reason John seems to want to keep at it. He has basically conceded that macro evolution is a problem. And once again he is not willing to do the mental experiment that will show him the folly of his worldview.)
John: As for daughter ions, you would have to believe that the decay chain begins out of secular equilibrium to claim the daughter ion estimated are off.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 3:39pm
(This makes absolutely no sense. All you have to do is prove how many daughter ions were there when the rock formed. Secular dating requires this number to be zero, but they cannot know this for certain.)
John: Jerry and Jim, go on YouTube and watch the 26 minute video called “The real truth about religion and its origins.” I believe this 100%. Let me know what you think. Every Christian should watch this for some reality
Like · Reply · January 1 at 5:17pm
John: Jerry by the way, I had a close friend over today, who is a Noble prize winning physicist specializing in the sun and carbon dating. He read through your daughter ion responses and said they are not complete since based on invalid assumptions. I already responded to you previously since he told me what to write.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 5:24pm
John: My physics friend said the best proof the universe is well over 6000 years old is the sun. He got the noble prize for his study on the sun’s neutrinos. The age of the sun is now proven to be 4 to 5 billion years old, which about halfway through its life. So the discussion between us on whether the Bible is correct on the dating of universe creation is done!
So if you want to discuss other parts of the plagiarized Bible that is fine. Humor me as you would say ?.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 5:50pm
Jerry: Arthur McDonald? Wow! How did they prove its age?
Like · Reply · January 1 at 6:21pm
John: Jerry who is Arthur McDonald?
Like · Reply · January 1 at 6:52pm
Jerry: Nobel laureate with neutrinos.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 6:58pm
John: Jerry, no that is not my friend. He used neutrinos with his team to prove the age of the sun, and the properties of sun, and what’s is the core of the sun. (You can definitely get some information on the properties of the sun by looking for neutrinos, but you cannot determine its age.)
Rings on old trees is another great proof Earth is much older than 6000 years, as in what is found when scientists drill deep into the ice in Greenland. (Scientists have found WWII airplanes in Greenland at a depth of ice they assumed was 40,000 years. Boy, those wooly mammoths really knew aerodynamics.)
Therefore discussing whether or not the age of life, earth, sun, and universe is over 6000 to 10,000 years old is a total waist of time since it is proven on many counts! (As you can see, it is virtually impossible to make a committed atheist see the errors in the interpretation of dating techniques.)
Therefore, since we know the Bible is wrong on this point, as well as Earth not being a flat circle, and that it was plagiarized from other Gods long before Christ, like Horus (god of the sun) and Krishna, what else would you like to discuss?
Like · Reply · January 1 at 7:41pm
(We don’t know the Bible is wrong on this point because we actually can’t prove the contrary.)
Jerry: Ok, they know the composition of the sun. Not newsworthy. How do they know what the composition of the sun was 4.6Bya?
Like · Reply · January 1 at 7:59pm
Jerry: I am not an arborist, but I have read some things on multiple rings per year in a pine tree. Most dating assumes one per year. But I am definitely not well versed on it.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:08pm
Jerry: And the Bible recorded a round earth millennia before it was accepted by scientists.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:09pm
John: Jerry, you are in total denial. I can’t explain exactly how they dated the sun using testing on neutrinos, hydrogen, helium and others. Why do you think you know more than so many experts in many fields that is different than your profession? Also, your argument on daughter ions when it comes to dating is not good as my noble prize friend told me today. Annoying and not a good discussion.
The problem is that you were obviously raised Christian and believe in the Bible. So you just pick and choose info to fit your beliefs since finding out the Bible is full of lies will be very difficult for you. Respectfully, do you really care what the truth is, or do you just want to continue to defend a 2000 year old fiction book?
Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:22pm
(“I can’t explain how they did it, but I trust them. I have faith in them.” It is that simple. Their faith is in man, not God.)
Jerry: I don’t. What I do know is we cannot know the initial conditions. It is the moldy bread thought experiment you still have not run through. If I knew the starting conditions and the current conditions, I can extrapolate and know age for certain (or at least very close). But we do not know the original conditions. While we may be able to say the decay rate for uranium is known today, do we truly know it has always been that way? (I do not necessarily believe the rate has changed, it is less of a consideration for me that not knowing the original daughter ion counts.)
Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:31pm
Jerry: I was not a Christian until age 43. I did not believe in the virgin birth, resurrection, etc until then. I believed in evolution, old earth, older universe. I used to have no doubts about these. When I started reading journal articles with a more discerning eye (i.e. looking at what the assumptions in the techniques) I started to question what I was being told. It was not until I found other people working with IRMS who were saying the same things I was thinking that I looked to Christ.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:36pm
John: Jerry, if you read the Bible, you see it says the Earth is a circle. Nobody would describe a circle as a 3 dimensional sphere or ball. It is a 2 dimensional flat circle , just like a coin is a circle. Simularly, a square is 2 dimensional and a cube is 3 dimensional. (The Bible never uses a term for a three-dimensional shape anywhere, so John’s interpretation is incorrect. People often add to the Bible. God has something to say about that.) We learned the Earth is a sphere when pictures were sent back to us from space long after the Bible was written by people who had no clue and did not talk to a non-existent God, who would have known the real shape of the Earth. Come on Jerry. At least admit the Bible is wrong on this. The more you write, the more gullible you look on religion!
Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:36pm
John: Ok so what was the main reason you now believe in Christ and creation without using the word faith?
Due to the Internet, a lot more people over the last 20 years are now atheists since it is much easier to find the facts and evidence.
Are you aware of the Clergy Project?
Also, about 80% of scientists today are evolutionists and non believers in the Bible.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:45pm
(If 80% of the scientists decided to jump off a bridge… This is the fallacy of the faulty appeal to authority. It is much easier to find incorrect interpretations of fact now than at any other time.)
John: Jerry did you watch the 26 minute Youtube video named The real truth about religion and it’s origins? Please do that. Very clear and will get you to really think what you believe.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 8:50pm
(I finally get tired of John’s rant and show him the mental experiment. What I am trying to get him to do is see that there is a very important parameter he cannot know – humidity. It could have changed drastically in the time between baking and when he saw it and measured the mold. But the truth is not something he wants to see.)
Jerry: Moldy bread experiment:
You see a piece of bread that is moldy. How do you find out the age of the bread?
Step 1: Measure the size of the bread
Step 2: Measure the amount of mold
Step 3: Measure the moisture content of the air
Step 4: Get a new piece of bread
Step 5: Set it in a place with the same moisture content
Step 6: Wait until the bread is covered with the same amount of mold
Step 7: Repeat the test to confirm
Real experimental problems: For the original piece of bread, was the moisture content always the same? Did the original bread start with mold on it?
This is the same problem for the measurement of rocks. It may also be the same problem for your Nobel award winning friend, although I do not know the methodology he used. What was his name? I would like to look up his research.
Like · Reply · January 1 at 9:55pm
(He won’t give me his friend’s name. Perhaps John has something to hide, after all, his friend did not actually win the Nobel Prize as he claimed earlier.)
John: I assume IMRS is a dating process you keep referring to, and the moldy bread is a simple example related to that. My friend received the Noble prize related to the sun (not rock dating) with his team in Sweden two years ago. I don’t know if he worked with McDonald, but will ask him. He does understand the decaying process, half lives, and daughter ions. I will show him the moldy bread example.
My friendly advice is that if you are talking to other strong Christian scientists, you will never get the whole story since they are desperately trying to explain the Bible in their eyes. Since you used to not follow Christ and creation, you also need to really look at the other side to get the full story. I’m trying to help you do that. Then you can make the best decision. Now that we all have the ability to thoroughly investigate things, fully believing in anything based mostly or all on faith is a cop out. Religion is full of false promises, lies, made up myths, and control. You are smarter and better than falling for that.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 12:13am
(I mentioned IRMS before – this is isotope ratio mass spectrometry, the devices used to determine the number of ions of each isotope of an element. They are very good at what they do, but all they can do is tell us how many ions are in a sample. What man does with that data is up to interpretation. This is an interesting situation. John tells me if I only listen to “Christian scientists” I will never get the whole story. Obviously, he cannot get the whole story, either.)
John: Can u send me the most convincing journal article you read to turn you to Christianity? I will critique it.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 12:18am
John: Jerry look up how tree rings also prove the age of the tree. Many trees are much older than 6000 years. That has nothing to do with daughter ions ?.
Also look up what scientists have found drilling very deep into the ice in Greenland.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 12:34am
John: The North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project or NEEM, led by the Niels Bohr Institute, is an international project with participants from 14 countries. After four years of deep drilling, the team has drilled ice cores through the more than 2.5 kilometer thick ice sheet. The ice is a stack of layer upon layer of annual snow fall which never melts away, and as the layers gradually sink, the snow is compresses into ice. This gives thousands of annual ice layers that, like tree rings, can tell us about variations in past climate from year to year.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 12:35am
John: In the last millions years Earth’s climate has alternated between ice ages lasting about 100,000 years and interglacial periods of 10,000 to 15,000 years. The new results from the NEEM ice core drilling project in northwest Greenland, led by the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen show that the climate in Greenland was around 8 degrees C warmer than today during the last interglacial period, the Eemian period, 130,000 to 115,000 thousand years ago.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 12:36am
John: Neutrinos can be created in several ways, including in beta decay of atomic nuclei or hadrons, nuclear reactions such as those that take place in the core of a star, supernovae, and when accelerated particle beams or cosmic rays hit atoms. The majority of neutrinos in the vicinity of the Earth are from nuclear reactions in the Sun. In the vicinity of the Earth, about 65 billion (6.5×1010) solar neutrinos per second pass through every square centimeter perpendicular to the direction of the Sun.[11][12] Neutrinos can be created artificially with nuclear reactors and particle accelerators.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 9:18am
(All this information on neutrinos John got from the internet is wonderful, but notice that it does not tell us how they come to a conclusion of the age of the sun.)
Jerry: It is interesting how you are holding my interpretation of the scientific evidence to a higher standard than yours. “If it can be shown to be older than 6000-8000 years then the Bible is false.” Yet, when I have probable cause to show that radiometric data is compromised, you ignore it, saying that because all these scientists say it, it must be true. I have shown you that the data is problematic, yet you still believe. You have a tree someone says is almost 10,000 years old. I pose the possibility that multiple tree rings could appear in the same year and you poo-poo it. Did anyone take a bristlecone pine tree of known age (50-100 years should be enough), subject it to various possible climate shifts, cut it and count exactly the correct number of rings? By the standards you are holding me to, if the age of the tree was known to be 50 years and there were 51 rings, your side would be demonstrably false. I am a scientist. A scientific experiment is supposed to be observable, testable and repeatable. Origins and evolution (macro) are unobservable, untestable and nonrepeatable. Yet, we are supposed to accept the word of man who has been making mistakes for millenia and accept the findings without question. So a rock from Mt. St. Helens radiodates to 2.4 million years and you ignore it. We have no positively identifiable transitional fossils, but you say we will find them some day. You see thousands of feet of undisturbed sediments in the Grand Canyon and say they were deposited over millions of years with no weathering (wind or rain) during that time, and you don’t see the problems with that view. You are arguing from the illogical position of the faulty appeal to authority. These scientists have made assumptions that are unfounded regardless of how reasonable they may seem to be.
You rant about Christian justification, yet you have justified over and over (or ignored completely) evidences that kill naturalistic theories. If I showed a rock that was known to be 35 years old to someone and they dated it at 2.4 million years, that theory would be dead. This has been done. But since it doesn’t hold to the old earth religion, it cannot be acceptable. The complexity of DNA eliminates the (mathematical) possibility that it happened by chance random processes, and we have designed experiments to create the building blocks of DNA which have failed miserably, so the theory should be dead. The BBT suffers from several theory-killing problems, but scientists add this rescue and that rescue which cause even more problems, but the theory is still not dead. Scientists make a breakthrough with CMB which was predicted but not specific as to its intensity and the scientific community hails the discovery as proof that the BBT is correct. A creation scientist makes the prediction with a specific value of the magnetic field of a planet based on 6000 years of existence which is determined to be accurate and it is ignored. The creation theory is dead. I’m sorry, John. If you are looking for justification in science, you are looking in the wrong place. I base my beliefs on the Bible and its stated timeline (an approximation, yes, but reasonably close); you base your beliefs on the word of man with demonstrably false results and hold fast to it. My theory has problems, but yours should have been dead 10 times over. There is no argument that can be made that is not countered by “all these scientists say…” Well, so be it. You win. Congratulations.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 9:49am
John: Jerry, you say the 6000 year old creation theory has problems, but evolution and big bang theories should have been dead 10 times over. I don’t understand your reasoning behind that statement. My side has some problems from not enough evidence yet and dating methods that don’t always work. Nothing is perfect which is why we call the data estimates. It seems obvious that your dating method is less reliable for constant accuracy according to the majority of experts. I’m not saying it’s definitely wrong, but am saying there is not nearly enough evidence it is right. (This has me rather confused. I have not proposed a dating method. I have merely pointed out the catastrophic flaws in the secular method. As a scientist, just one of these flaws would be cause to invalidate the technique.)
So in summary, there is more good evidence the Earth, sun, and life is well over 6000 years old, rather than less than 6000 years old. When it comes to Jesus, there is also great evidence the Bible is full of myths and copied stories from previous Gods (watch the video I told you about). There is more evidence for evolution of life over creation.
Then you add impossible Bible claims like a flat earth, full body resurrection, virgin birth, Noah’s ark, walking on water, turning water into wine, unicorns, Jonah living inside a fish for 3 days, and gay people being outlawed.
How come no writings have been found by anyone written when Jesus was alive while performing miracles and helping so many people? The only writings are from people after Jesus died. Makes you wonder if Jesus really performed all these miracles at all.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 10:36pm
(I have clearly demonstrated time after time after time the absolute issues with dating, yet John continues to ignore the facts. It is not opinion that a 35-year old rock from the Mt. St. Helens 1980 eruption was assigned a 2.4 million-year old date. There is no more evidence for evolution than creation. The evidence is the same. It is the interpretation that is different. The fact of the matter is that we have no means of determining age, not even creationists. We can, however, look to the source of all things and that is God, and his Bible gives us some information on what He did.)
(I could spend a lot of time on the next part, but it is clear that John does not believe in the deity of Christ. Of course, God could resurrect, walk on water, gather animals together at His will and turn water into wine. John’s interpretation is clearly out of ignorance as to God’s true message.)
John: Jerry, I sent your moldy bread example to my friend and have copied his response below.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 10:52pm
John: What he says is all fine, and it can certainly be true that in some completely unknown way you could have out-of-equilibrium isotopic fractions. There is just no known way for that to happen. Anything can be true; what matters is that the idea that decay chains are in equilibrium turns out to be correct in every other circumstance. But if you believe that some Intelligence set things up a different way, then there is no way to disprove that.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 10:53pm
(When U-Pb, K-Ar and Rb-Sr dating all give different responses how do you assign a date to the rock? You pick the one that is closest to the date you expect. This happens most of the time with radiometric dating. And note how John’s friend does not address the elephant in the room – the starting conditions. All the daughter ions are assumed to be non-existent at the time of formation, which means the results could be off significantly.)
Jerry: I would be interested to find out from your friend what his thoughts are about creation from nothing.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 10:56pm
John: Jerry that is a long answer but I will ask him.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 10:59pm
John: Jerry just to be clear, there are Christ believers who are evolutionists believing sun and earth are 4.5 billion years old. They basically believe in God and New Testament. Not nearly as much fun to discuss religion with them since believing in God gives them comfort. That is fine.
Like · Reply · January 3 at 9:57am
John: Jerry I asked my friend his thoughts on matter and single cell organisms coming from nothing, and have copied his response below.
Like · Reply · January 3 at 10:47am
John: The answer to the first question is that no one knows. We understand the laws of physics down to 10^-43 s after the Big Bang, but not before. A large part of what I study is trying to understand what happened before, but we just don’t know yet. The answer to the second question, about organic cells, is really a question about how nucleic acids (DNA) first formed. It is relatively easy to make amino acids naturally just by a combination of the right atoms and some energy (happens in space all the time), but no one knows how the first RNA or DNA molecules formed. Bear in mind there are plenty of non-organic molecules that we don’t have an origin for, so this is not so unusual. But I am not chemist or a biologist so I don’t know if there are already some ideas for how you could get an RNA or DNA molecule from scratch.
Like · Reply · January 3 at 10:49am
(This supposed Nobel laureate has basically admitted we don’t know. He states we understand the laws of physics from 10^-43 s after the Big Bang, which basically means we understand the physics working today. Frankly, I knew this much in 1986. We are 30 years on and we are still no closer to an answer. Notice how this also coincides with our complete lack of understanding about how life came into existence. While he says that amino acids are created in space all the time, what he does not say is whether or not they are appropriate as the building blocks of life. Experimental methods have produced equal amounts of right handed and left handed amino acids, which make it much more difficult to form the proteins correctly. Note the next post.)
Jerry: The real problem on the amino acids is that when formed they are a racemic mixture of left and right handed molecules. DNA uses only left handed. There also has to be an instruction sheet for folding the proteins made from the amino acids. These are enormous issues.
Like · Reply · 1 · January 3 at 11:57am
John: Jerry I just found a YouTube scientific video on YouTube showing that chromosome #2 is humans has been proven to be fused from 2 primate chromosomes. Monkeys have 48 chromosomes while humans have 46. It’s complicated for me to fully understand, but when creationists were asked about it, they said nothing. Another great indicator for macro evolution from primates to humans. Look it up.
Like · Reply · January 3 at 5:11pm
(If we fuse two chromosomes, we lose one, not two. Therefore, 48-1=47, not 46. This is one of the most ridiculous arguments ever. Even if we look at the similarities of humans and primates it does not amount to evolution. It does, however, point to a common creator.)
John: Thanks for you long response. I will answer you one part at a time starting from the beginning of your post:
There are very few guarantees in life, so as a logical thinker, I can only base my beliefs on the evidence. You are right that many things are not always true 100% of the time, but if they are true 99% of the time, I generally go with that. Therefore, since we do agree that believers view the Bible word of God, then I look at all the evidence to show that there is an extremely high probability (not definite) that our universe, Sun, earth, and life is a lot older than 6000 years. So when people see that and agree, then the there is also a very high probability (not definite) that the Bible is wrong. I hope you agree it is wrong when it says the earth is a flat circle.
Since God is a perfect intelligent being, nothing in the Bible should ever be wrong. I don’t care what you believe, but it is interesting and fun to try to cast doubt on true believers since that is not hard to do with those who are willing to look more into the truth. If I am wrong, I will admit it quickly. I do read and listen to what you are saying, but there is a very low probability what you are saying is true enough times for me to believe it. If 95% of scientists believe the universe, Earth, sun, and life is a lot older than 6000 years, I believe that.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 10:53am
(John keeps at the age thing. I hope I have done a good enough job explaining at least to you, why you cannot give a date based on rocks, or the sun. The starting conditions are unknowable. He will always believe in the consensus of scientists regardless of the fact that their worldview dictates their belief system.)
John: The best way to estimate the age of certain trees is to count the number of rings and measure the diameter of the trunk, then use a known growth factor to calculate the estimated age of tree. This is only good estimate, so it is very possible for a tree known to be 50 years old to have 51 rings. However, I believe there is an extremely low probability that 1000 trees estimated to be at least 100,000 years old are ALL in fact only 6000 years old, especially when 1000 trees known to be 50 years old show an average age of around 50 years old using the same age system to calculate it.
So once again, there is a very high probability (not guaranteed) the Earth is much older than 6000 years. The same conclusion can be said about the estimated age of the Sun (best indicator), dinosaur bones, primate bones, animal bones, many artifacts, and the evidence deep in the ice in Greenland. For me, there are many things showing this conclusion, so logical thinkers believe that.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 11:18am
Jerry: 100,000 years?
Like · Reply · January 2 at 11:56am
John: Jerry sorry! I meant to type 10,000 years old as an example.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 12:25pm
John As per Wikipedia,
Pando, an estimated 80,000-year-old colony of quaking aspen, is the oldest known clonal tree, located in Utah.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 12:27pm
John: More tree age estimates:
A clonal colony can survive for much longer than an individual tree. A colony of 47,000 quaking aspen trees (nicknamed “Pando”), covering 106 acres (43 ha) in the Fishlake National Forest of Utah, is considered one of the oldest and largest organisms in the world. The colony has been estimated to be 80,000 years old, although tree ring samples date individual, above-ground, trees at only an average of about 130 years.[1][2][3][4] A colony of Huon pine trees covering 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) on Mount Read, Tasmania is estimated to be around 10,000 years old, as determined by DNA samples taken from pollen collected from the sediment of a nearby lake. Individual trees in this group date to no more than 4,000 years old, as determined by tree ring samples.[5]
Like · Reply · January 2 at 12:35pm
John: Jerry, it turns out that my friend worked closely with Arthur McDonald when dating the sun. I have copied his response to my text below.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 2:07pm
John: Yes, I worked with Art pretty closely. We measure the age of the Sun by observing the number of neutrinos produced in its core (you can look up details of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory online). The neutrinos tell us the temperature of the core and the laws of physics tell us how old the Sun must be for its core to be about that temperature.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 2:08pm
(I looked up the Sudbury website and oddly enough, I found no information on neutrinos being used to calculate the age of the sun. In fact, I took my search farther and was unable to find any link between neutrinos and age. My guess is John’s friend is less than truthful.)
John: He said the only possible way the sun can be less than 10,000 years old is if God make it look a lot older to test our faith. I guess that can said about bones and artifacts too, but extremely unlikely.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 2:12pm
Jerry: Thank you. I will look that up.
Like · Reply · January 2 at 2:50pm
(Our conversation is basically over. John went on to provide some links of websites I should check out that make the same mistaken assumptions all evolutionists make. The bottom line is that, despite the many times John mentioned that “the probability of this happening” was much more likely than God creating all things, the fact of the matter is that there is no possible way for life to come from a mixture of chemicals. There has to be instructions for the creation of life, and that can not be accomplished with anything short of a creator. God is our Creator. He is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-capable. Evolution, and naturalism have no scientific basis for the advent of time, space and matter. There is no way to create any of them from within the confines of science. The universe cannot create itself. God, however, is outside of time, space and matter. Only He can create the things that exist in our universe.)