New YEC book

ChristianTrader · #1 (**permalink**) 11-17-2008, 01:24 PM

Coming To Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth

Coming to Grips with Genesis | Old Testament Studies

I think it looks quite interesting.

sastark · #2 (**permalink**) 11-17-2008, 02:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChristianTrader

Coming To Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth

Coming to Grips with Genesis | Old Testament Studies

I think it looks quite interesting.

I have another one of Terry Mortensen's books:

Amazon

panta dokimazete · #3 (**permalink**) 11-17-2008, 02:58 PM

Saw

this comment
this comment Amazon

at the second books Amazon site.

Ignoring the ad hominum ravings - what is the YEC answer for the points below:

Quote:

Carl Flygare says:
Wombatty,

"The Great Turning Point: The Church's Catastrophic Mistake on Geology - Before Darwin" a five star book, according to your haphazard review anyway, implicitly champions a young earth creationist (YEC) worldview. Since you believe that the earth is between 6,000 - 10,000 years old the ragtag 'research' of the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) group should be familiar to you. John Baumgardner (occasional collaborator with author Terry Mortenson at the dunghill website and abstruse apologetics ministry disingenuously known as Answers in Genesis) and the RATE group recently accepted $2.5 million in private donations to conduct YEC research at the same time that Baumgardner was publishing old-earth and old-moon papers in mainstream scientific journals. This is fact, not assertion - and nicely illustrates the intellectual and ethical poverty endemic to the YEC community. This is particularly relevant since Baumgardner's first slide at a recent RATE conference shouted "News Flash: paradigm overturned; textbooks need to be rewritten, earth is young, etc."

After years of staring mindlessly at their belly buttons and bibles RATE posits a 'cosmic-scale event' (a miracle in simple English) that accelerated radioactive decay by a factor of a billion-fold during a single year (Noah's flood) to account for the findings of creationist geochronology. This is a serious problem for YECs. Radioisotope decay generates heat. If you compress 4.5 billion years of decay into 6,000 years you've got a real heat problem. But this isn't the only one:

Magma - the geologic record includes roughly 8 x 10^24 grams of lava flows and igneous intrusions. Assuming (conservatively) a specific heat of 0.15, this magma would release 5.4 x 10^27 joules while cooling 1,100 degrees C. In addition, the heat of crystallization as the magma solidifies would release a great deal more heat.

Limestone formation - there are roughly 5 x 10^23 grams of limestone in the earth's sediments, and the formation of calcite releases about 11,290 joules/gram. If only 10% of the limestone were formed during Noah's fictitious flood, the 5.6 x 10^26 joules of heat released would be enough to boil the flood waters and poach Noah - along with everything else on his leaky tub.

Meteorite impacts - erosion and crustal movements have erased an unknown number of impact craters on earth, but creationists Whitcomb and DeYoung simply assert that cratering to the extent seen on the Moon and Mercury occurred on earth during the year of Noah's flood (aka ghastly global genocide). The heat from just one of the largest lunar impacts released an estimated 3.7 x 10^27 joules - the same sized object falling to earth would release even more energy.

5.6 x 10^26 joules is enough to heat boil the oceans. 3.7 x 10^27 joules will vaporize them completely. Since steam and air have a lower heat capacity than water, the steam released would quickly raise the temperature of the atmosphere over 1,000 decrees C. At these temperatures much of the atmosphere would boil off the earth.

YECs can only resolve this problem by invoking a miracle. The sky-fairy of Abraham just magically zapped away the heat. An infinite regress of miraculous contortions are required to prop up YEC assertions - my preferred framework of methodological and philosophical naturalism avoids the problems inherent in your 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly' worldview - where things do go bump in the night, the universe is demon haunted, donkeys can talk, people can fly, and a man names Jesus lives up in the sky.

Thanks for the entertainment Wombatty. Your dingbatty delusions are endlessly comedic - just like the sacred schizophrenia of your buffoonish co-religionists.

Backwoods Presbyterian · #4 (**permalink**) 11-17-2008, 03:53 PM

Wit hall do respect to Jd that Blasphemy needs to be moderated out.

Seb · #5 (**permalink**) 11-17-2008, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian

Wit hall do respect to Jd that Blasphemy needs to be moderated out.

Do we really need this God-hating diatribe on the PB?

Zenas · #6 (**permalink**) 11-17-2008, 07:30 PM

The amount of words that man spends on something he supposedly believes is utter stupidity is amazing. Whereas atheist commercials on a bus get a passing laugh from me, despite the depth of foolishness it displays, he thinks it necessary to write, at length, about something so inherently stupid he has to tell us it is: several times.

Webster's Dictionary:

entry: "idiot"

See generally: That guy above.

ChristianTrader · #7 (**permalink**) 11-22-2008, 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by panta dokimazete

Saw this comment at the second books Amazon site.

Ignoring the ad hominum ravings - what is the YEC answer for the points below:

Quote:

Carl Flygare says:
Wombatty,

"The Great Turning Point: The Church's Catastrophic Mistake on Geology - Before Darwin" a five star book, according to your haphazard review anyway, implicitly champions a young earth creationist (YEC) worldview. Since you believe that the earth is between 6,000 - 10,000 years old the ragtag 'research' of the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth) group should be familiar to you. John Baumgardner (occasional collaborator with author Terry Mortenson at the dunghill website and abstruse apologetics ministry disingenuously known as Answers in Genesis) and the RATE group recently accepted $2.5 million in private donations to conduct YEC research at the same time that Baumgardner was publishing old-earth and old-moon papers in mainstream scientific journals. This is fact, not assertion - and nicely illustrates the intellectual and ethical poverty endemic to the YEC community. This is particularly relevant since Baumgardner's first slide at a recent RATE conference shouted "News Flash: paradigm overturned; textbooks need to be rewritten, earth is young, etc."

After years of staring mindlessly at their belly buttons and bibles RATE posits a 'cosmic-scale event' (a miracle in simple English) that accelerated radioactive decay by a factor of a billion-fold during a single year (Noah's flood) to account for the findings of creationist geochronology. This is a serious problem for YECs. Radioisotope decay generates heat. If you compress 4.5 billion years of decay into 6,000 years you've got a real heat problem. But this isn't the only one:

Magma - the geologic record includes roughly 8 x 10^24 grams of lava flows and igneous intrusions. Assuming (conservatively) a specific heat of 0.15, this magma would release 5.4 x 10^27 joules while cooling 1,100 degrees C. In addition, the heat of crystallization as the magma solidifies would release a great deal more heat.

Limestone formation - there are roughly 5 x 10^23 grams of limestone in the earth's sediments, and the formation of calcite releases about 11,290 joules/gram. If only 10% of the limestone were formed during Noah's fictitious flood, the 5.6 x 10^26 joules of heat released would be enough to boil the flood waters and poach Noah - along with everything else on his leaky tub.

Meteorite impacts - erosion and crustal movements have erased an unknown number of impact craters on earth, but creationists Whitcomb and DeYoung simply assert that cratering to the extent seen on the Moon and Mercury occurred on earth during the year of Noah's flood (aka ghastly global genocide). The heat from just one of the largest lunar impacts released an estimated 3.7 x 10^27 joules - the same sized object falling to earth would release even more energy.

5.6 x 10^26 joules is enough to heat boil the oceans. 3.7 x 10^27 joules will vaporize them completely. Since steam and air have a lower heat capacity than water, the steam released would quickly raise the temperature of the atmosphere over 1,000 decrees C. At these temperatures much of the atmosphere would boil off the earth.

YECs can only resolve this problem by invoking a miracle. The sky-fairy of Abraham just magically zapped away the heat. An infinite regress of miraculous contortions are required to prop up YEC assertions - my preferred framework of methodological and philosophical naturalism avoids the problems inherent in your 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly' worldview - where things do go bump in the night, the universe is demon haunted, donkeys can talk, people can fly, and a man names Jesus lives up in the sky.

Thanks for the entertainment Wombatty. Your dingbatty delusions are endlessly comedic - just like the sacred schizophrenia of your buffoonish co-religionists.

A couple quick comments:

1)It seems that the author believes that if one cannot or does not answer his inquiry to his satisfaction in five minutes or less, then there is no answer from the opposition.

2)So what if a miracle is invoked? God exists and is able to sustain the world in any way that He sees fit. If that means the he interacts differently than he did, yesterday etc., then so be it.

3)The author also seems to really be ignorant of the problems of naturalism.

Here is a great paper on these points and more.

http://www.owenanderson.net/reviews/...ellArticle.pdf

CHARLES LYELL, UNIFORMITARIANISM, AND INTERPRETIVE PRINCIPLES
by Owen Anderson

Abstract. I examine the development of Charles Lyell’s principle of uniformity and its influence on the development of modern geology and biology and argue that distinguishing between philosophical starting points and empirical findings is essential for clarity in the discussion between science and religion. First, I explore Lyell’s arguments against catastrophism and how these were both empirically and religiously motivated. I then consider how David Hume’s empiricism, theory of causation, and rejection of miracles influenced Lyell. Using these insights, Lyell formulated his principle of uniformity, which he believed was based on current empirical findings, and rejected explanatory hypotheses that used the biblical Flood or other catastrophist accounts as violations of uniform causation and introductions of theological concepts into empirical science. I next examine the influence of Lyell’s principle on Charles Darwin. Although Lyell opposed Darwinism for most of his life, Darwin relied heavily on Lyell, as is evidenced by references throughout The Origin of Species. I contend that the most important aspect of Lyell’s principle for Darwin is that it makes natural evil (the struggle for survival) a process that has always been occurring rather than something introduced after the Fall as recorded in Genesis. Finally, I discuss the role that uniformity plays for Lyell, Darwin, and modern science as an interpretive principle rather than as an inference from empirical data, and I conclude by noting that keeping the distinction in mind between interpretive principles and empirical findings will help clarify debates between science and religion.