Perceptions of God, Creationism and Evolution

[vojnik]

I've noticed this as well. It seems Mr. Vangelovski can't handle other people's opinion that well and get upset, denegrating and using his 'forum powers' with threatening. Calm down son. At the end of the day, It's just a forum on the freakin internet.

Jankovska wrote something recently what stayed in my mind

The thing is it isn't about other people's opinions so much it is the lack of scientific eviodence for their opinion. Especially with evolution members on this forum have failed to present valid sources of evidence if any besides Dawkin running his mouth like evolution should be writting into the constitution. Everyone is entitled for an opinion but when your opinion has no scientific evidence to support it yet persist to push the idea as if it is fact. This argument should of ended a long time ago countless posts have proved Creationism yet none have proved evolution so why do people bother arguing and trying to degrade people with name I don't get it

[Vangelovski]

There are many proven forms of dating

Here's a link to the most popular radiometric dating methods used today.
this article is well referenced.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating

Thanks Julie, I did provide an article a number of pages back that discusses most of these methods and the problems with them. None are conclusively accurate, and most have been demonstrated to be inaccurate by hundreds of millions of years.

[Bukefal]

The thing is it isn't about other people's opinions so much it is the lack of scientific eviodence for their opinion. Especially with evolution members on this forum have failed to present valid sources of evidence if any besides Dawkin running his mouth like evolution should be writting into the constitution. Everyone is entitled for an opinion but when your opinion has no scientific evidence to support it yet persist to push the idea as if it is fact. This argument should of ended a long time ago countless posts have proved Creationism yet none have proved evolution so why do people bother arguing and trying to degrade people with name I don't get it

Even if someone has a lack of evidence or knowledge, even if someone is totally wrong in your eyes. what I want to say is, it is still no reason to bash, be hateful or denigrate others. Its a forum, a place to discuss. To give and to receive and some only like to give and dont want to receive.

No one can prove it, both sides can not, so yeah I agree with you that its neverending and heading nowhere.

[Vangelovski]

I've noticed this as well. It seems Mr. Vangelovski can't handle other people's opinion that well and get upset, denegrating and using his 'forum powers' with threatening. Calm down son. At the end of the day, It's just a forum on the freakin internet.

Jankovska wrote something recently what stayed in my mind

We like to keep on topic here and the topic orginally started out about Noah and his descendents. If Jankovska and anyone else wanted to have a rant about how horrible I am they are free to start a new thread specifically dedicated to that.

But because most people just can't focus we had to broaden the topic out to basically include anything even remotely related to religion.

Perhaps you are just too sensitive? Though I'm not sure why, particularly when you are more than happy to read bi-polar drivel and foul language...maybe its not my "tone", but the lack of evidence for evolution that rubs you up the wrong way? Atheists can be so passionate about things they don't even believe in!

But seeing as you claim I have been "hateful" and "denigrating" towards others, perhaps you can provide a specific example? Perhaps the one you has not been "hateful" and "denigrating" towards others can throw the first stone?

[vojnik]

Even if someone has a lack of evidence or knowledge, even if someone is totally wrong in your eyes. what I want to say is, it is still no reason to bash, be hateful or denigrate others. Its a forum, a place to discuss. To give and to receive and some only like to give and dont want to receive.

No one can prove it, both sides can not, so yeah I agree with you that its neverending and heading nowhere.

The "bashing" came from Phoenix with his first post on the thread and didn't stop from then on. Various sources have been provided by TV and if people took time to read them instead of being ignorant the discusion would have ended at the first post of evidence. Yet evolutionists persisted to push their idea with no backing and not even taking the articles and evidence provided into consideration. It was asked many time for evolutionists to provide evidence to disprove all evidence presented by TV yet they failed to do so instead we go videos which contradicted what they were saying by einstein and videos of Dawkins talking non-sense

[Bukefal]

We like to keep on topic here and the topic orginally started out about Noah and his descendents. If Jankovska and anyone else wanted to have a rant about how horrible I am they are free to start a new thread specifically dedicated to that.

But because most people just can't focus we had to broaden the topic out to basically include anything even remotely related to religion.

She didnt want to rant about how horrible you are. Jankovska just posted her opinion, that the story of Noah is just a story. On which you started to threat her.

Perhaps you are just too sensitive?

Not really, I could care less.

It actually looks more like that you are the one who is too sensitive in here. That explains your posts being emotional charged, your tone, talking down, threatening and denegrating others.

It's just a forum on the internet.

[Vangelovski]

She didnt want to rant about how horrible you are. Jankovska just posted her opinion, that the story of Noah is just a story. On which you started to threat her.



Not really, I could care less.

It actually looks more like that you are the one who is too sensitive in here. That explains your posts being emotional charged, your tone, talking down, threatening and denegrating others.

It's just a forum on the internet.

Again, no examples.

Jankovska has a history of irrelevant vile on all topics. But, you seem to like commenting on matters you have no knowledge of, which does make my work much easier

[Bukefal]

Again, no examples.

Jankovska has a history of irrelevant vile on all topics. But, you seem to like commenting on matters you have no knowledge of, which does make my work much easier

lol, here you have your example ^ you just provided it yourself.

[George S.]

Scientists use a technique called radiometric dating to estimate the ages of rocks, fossils, and the earth. Many people have been led to believe that radiometric dating methods have proved the earth to be billions of years old. This has caused many in the church to reevaluate the biblical creation account, specifically the meaning of the word “day” in Genesis 1. With our focus on one particular form of radiometric dating—carbon dating—we will see that carbon dating strongly supports a young earth. Note that, contrary to a popular misconception, carbon dating is not used to date rocks at millions of years old.
Basics

Doesn’t Carbon-14 Dating Disprove the Bible?

Before we get into the details of how radiometric dating methods are used, we need to review some preliminary concepts from chemistry. Recall that atoms are the basic building blocks of matter. Atoms are made up of much smaller particles called protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons make up the center (nucleus) of the atom, and electrons form shells around the nucleus.
The number of protons in the nucleus of an atom determines the element. For example, all carbon atoms have 6 protons, all atoms of nitrogen have 7 protons, and all oxygen atoms have 8 protons. The number of neutrons in the nucleus can vary in any given type of atom. So, a carbon atom might have six neutrons, or seven, or possibly eight—but it would always have six protons. An “isotope” is any of several different forms of an element, each having different numbers of neutrons. The illustration below shows the three isotopes of carbon.
Some isotopes of certain elements are unstable; they can spontaneously change into another kind of atom in a process called “radioactive decay.” Since this process presently happens at a known measured rate, scientists attempt to use it like a “clock” to tell how long ago a rock or fossil formed. There are two main applications for radiometric dating. One is for potentially dating fossils (once-living things) using carbon-14 dating, and the other is for dating rocks and the age of the earth using uranium, potassium and other radioactive atoms.

The atomic number corresponds to the number of protons in an atom. Atomic mass is a combination of the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. (The electrons are so much lighter that they do not contribute significantly to the mass of an atom.)
Carbon-14 Dating
Carbon-14 (14C), also referred to as radiocarbon, is claimed to be a reliable dating method for determining the age of fossils up to 50,000 to 60,000 years. If this claim is true, the biblical account of a young earth (about 6,000 years) is in question, since 14C dates of tens of thousands of years are common.1
When a scientist’s interpretation of data does not match the clear meaning of the text in the Bible, we should never reinterpret the Bible. God knows just what He meant to say, and His understanding of science is infallible, whereas ours is fallible. So we should never think it necessary to modify His Word. Genesis 1 defines the days of creation to be literal days (a number with the word “day” always means a normal day in the Old Testament, and the phrase “evening and morning” further defines the days as literal days). Since the Bible is the inspired Word of God, we should examine the validity of the standard interpretation of 14C dating by asking several questions:
Is the explanation of the data derived from empirical, observational science, or an interpretation of past events (historical science)?
Are there any assumptions involved in the dating method?
Are the dates provided by 14C dating consistent with what we observe?
Do all scientists accept the 14C dating method as reliable and accurate?
All radiometric dating methods use scientific procedures in the present to interpret what has happened in the past. The procedures used are not necessarily in question. The interpretation of past events is in question. The secular (evolutionary) worldview interprets the universe and world to be billions of years old. The Bible teaches a young universe and earth. Which worldview does science support? Can carbon-14 dating help solve the mystery of which worldview is more accurate?

The use of carbon-14 dating is often misunderstood. Carbon-14 is mostly used to date once-living things (organic material). It cannot be used directly to date rocks; however, it can potentially be used to put time constraints on some inorganic material such as diamonds (diamonds could contain carbon-14). Because of the rapid rate of decay of 14C, it can only give dates in the thousands-of-year range and not millions.
There are three different naturally occurring varieties (isotopes) of carbon: 12C, 13C, and 14C.
Carbon-14 is used for dating because it is unstable (radioactive), whereas 12C and 13C are stable. Radioactive means that 14C will decay (emit radiation) over time and become a different element. During this process (called “beta decay”) a neutron in the 14C atom will be converted into a proton. By losing one neutron and gaining one proton, 14C is changed into nitrogen-14 (14N = 7 protons and 7 neutrons).

If 14C is constantly decaying, will the earth eventually run out of 14C? The answer is no. Carbon-14 is constantly being added to the atmosphere. Cosmic rays from outer space, which contain high levels of energy, bombard the earth’s upper atmosphere. These cosmic rays collide with atoms in the atmosphere and can cause them to come apart. Neutrons that come from these fragmented atoms collide with 14N atoms (the atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen and oxygen) and convert them into 14C atoms (a proton changes into a neutron).
Once 14C is produced, it combines with oxygen in the atmosphere (12C behaves like 14C and also combines with oxygen) to form carbon dioxide (CO2). Because CO2 gets incorporated into plants (which means the food we eat contains 14C and 12C), all living things should have the same ratio of 14C and 12C in them as in the air we breathe.
How the Carbon-14 Dating Process Works
Once a living thing dies, the dating process begins. As long as an organism is alive it will continue to take in 14C; however, when it dies, it will stop. Since 14C is radioactive (decays into 14N), the amount of 14C in a dead organism gets less and less over time. Therefore, part of the dating process involves measuring the amount of 14C that remains after some has been lost (decayed). Scientists now use a device called an “Accelerator Mass Spectrometer” (AMS) to determine the ratio of 14C to 12C, which increases the assumed accuracy to about 80,000 years. In order to actually do the dating, other things need to be known. Two such things include the following questions:
How fast does 14C decay?
What was the starting amount of 14C in the creature when it died?
The decay rate of radioactive elements is described in terms of half-life. The half-life of an atom is the amount of time it takes for half of the atoms in a sample to decay. The half-life of 14C is 5,730 years. For example, a jar starting with all 14C atoms at time zero will contain half 14C atoms and half 14N atoms at the end of 5,730 years (one half-life). At the end of 11,460 years (two half-lives) the jar will contain one-quarter 14C atoms and three-quarter 14N atoms.
Since the half-life of 14C is known (how fast it decays), the only part left to determine is the starting amount of 14C in a fossil. If scientists know the original amount of 14C in a creature when it died, they can measure the current amount and then calculate how many half-lives have passed.

Since no one was there to measure the amount of 14C when a creature died, scientists need to find a method to determine how much 14C has decayed. To do this, scientists use the main isotope of carbon, called carbon-12 (12C). Because 12C is a stable isotope of carbon, it will remain constant; however, the amount of 14C will decrease after a creature dies. All living things take in carbon (14C and 12C) from eating and breathing. Therefore, the ratio of 14C to 12C in living creatures will be the same as in the atmosphere. This ratio turns out to be about one 14C atom for every 1 trillion 12C atoms. Scientists can use this ratio to help determine the starting amount of 14C.
When an organism dies, this ratio (1 to 1 trillion) will begin to change. The amount of 12C will remain constant, but the amount of 14C will become less and less. The smaller the ratio, the longer the organism has been dead. The following illustration demonstrates how the age is estimated using this ratio.
Percent 14C Remaining Percent 12C Remaining Ratio Number of Half-Lives Years Dead(Age of Fossil)
100 100 1 to 1T 0 0
50 100 1 to 2T 1 5,730
25 100 1 to 4T 2 11,460
12.5 100 1 to 8T 3 17,190
6.25 100 1 to 16T 4 22,920
3.125 100 1 to 32T 5 28,650
T = Trillion
A Critical Assumption
A critical assumption used in carbon-14 dating has to do with this ratio. It is assumed that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today (1 to 1 trillion). If this assumption is true, then the AMS 14C dating method is valid up to about 80,000 years. Beyond this number, the instruments scientists use would not be able to detect enough remaining 14C to be useful in age estimates. This is a critical assumption in the dating process. If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates. What could cause this ratio to change? If the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere is not equal to the removal rate (mostly through decay), this ratio will change. In other words, the amount of 14C being produced in the atmosphere must equal the amount being removed to be in a steady state (also called “equilibrium”). If this is not true, the ratio of 14C to 12C is not a constant, which would make knowing the starting amount of 14C in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine.
Dr. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant. His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important. If the starting assumption is false, all the calculations based on that assumption might be correct but still give a wrong conclusion.
In Dr. Libby’s original work, he noted that the atmosphere did not appear to be in equilibrium. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. Dr. Libby’s calculations showed that if the earth started with no 14C in the atmosphere, it would take up to 30,000 years to build up to a steady state (equilibrium).
If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life-cycle.2
Dr. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy (nonequilibrium state), and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real. The ratio of 14C /12C is not constant.
The Specific Production Rate (SPR) of C-14 is known to be 18.8 atoms per gram of total carbon per minute. The Specific Decay Rate (SDR) is known to be only 16.1 disintegrations per gram per minute.3
What does this mean? If it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and 14C is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old.
Magnetic Field of the Earth
Other factors can affect the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere. The earth has a magnetic field around it which helps protect us from harmful radiation from outer space. This magnetic field is decaying (getting weaker). The stronger the field is around the earth, the fewer the number of cosmic rays that are able to reach the atmosphere. This would result in a smaller production of 14C in the atmosphere in earth’s past.
The cause for the long term variation of the C-14 level is not known. The variation is certainly partially the result of a change in the cosmic ray production rate of radiocarbon. The cosmic-ray flux, and hence the production rate of C-14, is a function not only of the solar activity but also of the magnetic dipole moment of the Earth.4
Though complex, this history of the earth’s magnetic field agrees with Barnes’ basic hypothesis, that the field has always freely decayed.... The field has always been losing energy despite its variations, so it cannot be more than 10,000 years old.5
Earth’s magnetic field is fading. Today it is about 10 percent weaker than it was when German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss started keeping tabs on it in 1845, scientists say.6
If the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere was less in the past, dates given using the carbon-14 method would incorrectly assume that more 14C had decayed out of a specimen than what has actually occurred. This would result in giving older dates than the true age.
Genesis Flood
What role might the Genesis Flood have played in the amount of carbon? The Flood would have buried large amounts of carbon from living organisms (plant and animal) to form today’s fossil fuels (coal, oil, etc.). The amount of fossil fuels indicates there must have been a vastly larger quantity of vegetation in existence prior to the Flood than exists today. This means that the biosphere just prior to the Flood might have had 500 times more carbon in living organisms than today. This would further dilute the amount of 14C and cause the 14C/12C ratio to be much smaller than today.
If that were the case, and this C-14 were distributed uniformly throughout the biosphere, and the total amount of biosphere C were, for example, 500 times that of today’s world, the resulting C-14/C-12 ratio would be 1/500 of today’s level....7
When the Flood is taken into account along with the decay of the magnetic field, it is reasonable to believe that the assumption of equilibrium is a false assumption.
Because of this false assumption, any age estimates using 14C prior to the Flood will give much older dates than the true age. Pre-Flood material would be dated at perhaps ten times the true age.
The RATE Group Findings
In 1997 an eight-year research project was started to investigate the age of the earth. The group was called the RATE group (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth). The team of scientists included:
Larry Vardiman, PhD Atmospheric Science
Russell Humphreys, PhD Physics
Eugene Chaffin, PhD Physics
John Baumgardner, PhD Geophysics
Donald DeYoung, PhD Physics
Steven Austin, PhD Geology
Andrew Snelling, PhD Geology
Steven Boyd, PhD Hebraic and Cognate Studies
The objective was to gather data commonly ignored or censored by evolutionary standards of dating. The scientists reviewed the assumptions and procedures used in estimating the ages of rocks and fossils. The results of the carbon-14 dating demonstrated serious problems for long geologic ages. For example, a series of fossilized wood samples that conventionally have been dated according to their host strata to be from Tertiary to Permian (40-250 million years old) all yielded significant, detectable levels of carbon-14 that would conventionally equate to only 30,000-45,000 years “ages” for the original trees.8 Similarly, a survey of the conventional radiocarbon journals resulted in more than forty examples of supposedly ancient organic materials, including limestones, that contained carbon-14, as reported by leading laboratories.9
Samples were then taken from ten different coal layers that, according to evolutionists, represent different time periods in the geologic column (Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic). The RATE group obtained these ten coal samples from the U.S. Department of Energy Coal Sample Bank, from samples collected from major coalfields across the United States. The chosen coal samples, which dated millions to hundreds of millions of years old based on standard evolution time estimates, all contained measurable amounts of 14C. In all cases, careful precautions were taken to eliminate any possibility of contamination from other sources. Samples, in all three “time periods”, displayed significant amounts of 14C. This is a significant discovery. Since the half-life of 14C is relatively short (5,730 years), there should be no detectable 14C left after about 100,000 years. The average 14C estimated age for all the layers from these three time periods was approximately 50,000 years. However, using a more realistic pre-Flood 14C /12C ratio reduces that age to about 5,000 years.

These results indicate that the entire geologic column is less than 100,000 years old—and could be much younger. This confirms the Bible and challenges the evolutionary idea of long geologic ages.
Because the lifetime of C-14 is so brief, these AMS [Accelerator Mass Spectrometer] measurements pose an obvious challenge to the standard geological timescale that assigns millions to hundreds of millions of years to this part of the rock layer.10
Another noteworthy observation from the RATE group was the amount of 14C found in diamonds. Secular scientists have estimated the ages of diamonds to be millions to billions of years old using other radiometric dating methods. These methods are also based on questionable assumptions and are discussed elsewhere11. Because of their hardness, diamonds (the hardest known substance) are extremely resistant to contamination through chemical exchange. Since diamonds are considered to be so old by evolutionary standards, finding any 14C in them would be strong support for a recent creation.
The RATE group analyzed twelve diamond samples for possible carbon-14 content. Similar to the coal results, all twelve diamond samples contained detectable, but lower levels of 14C. These findings are powerful evidence that coal and diamonds cannot be the millions or billions of years old that evolutionists claim. Indeed, these RATE findings of detectable 14C in diamonds have been confirmed independently.12 Carbon-14 found in fossils at all layers of the geologic column, in coal and in diamonds, is evidence which confirms the biblical timescale of thousands of years and not billions.
Because of C-14’s short half-life, such a finding would argue that carbon and probably the entire physical earth as well must have a recent origin.13
Conclusion
All radiometric dating methods are based on assumptions about events that happened in the past. If the assumptions are accepted as true (as is typically done in the evolutionary dating processes), results can be biased toward a desired age. In the reported ages given in textbooks and other journals, these evolutionary assumptions have not been questioned, while results inconsistent with long ages have been censored. When the assumptions were evaluated and shown faulty, the results supported the biblical account of a global Flood and young earth. Christians should not be afraid of radiometric dating methods. Carbon-14 dating is really the friend of Christians, and it supports a young earth.
The RATE scientists are convinced that the popular idea attributed to geologist Charles Lyell from nearly two centuries ago, “The present is the key to the past,” is simply not valid for an earth history of millions or billions of years. An alternative interpretation of the carbon-14 data is that the earth experienced a global flood catastrophe which laid down most of the rock strata and fossils.... Whatever the source of the carbon-14, its presence in nearly every sample tested worldwide is a strong challenge to an ancient age. Carbon-14 data is now firmly on the side of the young-earth view of history.14
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Footnotes
Earth Science (Teachers Edition), Prentice Hall, 2002, 301. Back
W. Libby, Radiocarbon Dating, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, 1952, 8. Back
C. Sewell, “Carbon-14 and the Age of the Earth,” 1999. www.rae.org/bits23.htm. Back
M. Stuiver and H. Suess, On the relationship between radiocarbon dates and true sample ages, Radiocarbon, Vol. 8, 1966, 535. Back
R. Humphreys, The mystery of earth’s magnetic field, ICR Impact, Feb 1, 1989. www.icr.org/article/292. Back
J. Roach, National Geographic News, September 9, 2004. Back
J. Baumgarder, C-14 evidence for a recent global Flood and a young earth, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. 2, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California, 2005, 618. Back
A.A. Snelling, Radioactive “dating” in conflict! Fossil wood in ancient lava flow yields radiocarbon, Creation Ex Nihilo 20(1):24–27, 1997. A.A. Snelling, Stumping old-age dogma: Radiocarbon in an “ancient” fossil tree stump casts doubt on traditional rock/fossil dating, Creation Ex Nihilo 20(4):48–51, 1998. A.A. Snelling, Dating dilemma: Fossil wood in ancient sandstone: Creation Ex Nihilo 21(3):39–41, 1992. A.A. Snelling, Geological conflict: Young radiocarbon date for ancient fossil wood challenges fossil dating, Creation Ex Nihilo 22(2):44–47, 2000. A.A. Snelling, Conflicting “ages” of Tertiary basalt and contained fossilized wood, Crinum, central Queensland, Australia, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal 14(2):99–122, 2000. Back
P, Giem, Carbon-14 content of fossil carbon, Origins 51:6–30, 2001. Back
Ibid., 587. Back
Ibid., 609. Back
M. Riddle, Does radiometric dating prove the earth is old?, in K.A. Ham (Ed.), The New Answers Book, Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, pp. 113–124, 2006. Back
R.E. Taylor, and J. Southon, Use of natural diamonds to monitor 14C AMS instrument backgrounds, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 259:282–287, 2007. Back
D. DeYoung, Thousands ... Not Billions, Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, 2005, 61. Back
Recommended Resources

Doesn't Carbon Dating Disprove the Bible?
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Answers Magazine Subscription: United States
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[George S.]

s Carbon Dating Reliable?
by Helen Fryman

Question: What about radiocarbon dating? Is it accurate?

Response: I asked several people who know about this field. Their responses are numbered below.

(1.) C14 dating is very accurate for wood used up to about 4,000 years ago. This is only because it is well calibrated with objects of known age. Example: wood found in a grave of known age by historically reliable documents is the standard for that time for the C14 content. This standard content of C14 can then be used for wood not associated with a historically documented date. Dates up to this point in history are well documented for C14 calibration.

For object over 4,000 years old the method becomes very unreliable for the following reason: Objects older then 4,000 years run into a problem in that there are few if any known artifacts to be used as the standard. Libby the discoverer of the C14 dating method was very disappointed with this problem. He understood that archaeological artifacts were readily available. After all this what the archeologist guessed in their published books.

Some believe trees are known to be as old as 9,000 years. They use tree rings as the calibration standard. A lot of people doubt this claim for various good reasons I wont go into here. We believe all the dates over 5,000 years are really compressible into the next 2,000 years back to creation. So when you hear of a date of 30,000 years for a carbon date we believe it to be early after creation and only about 7,000 years old. If something carbon dates at 7,000 years we believe 5,000 is probably closer to reality (just before the flood).

Robert Whitelaw has done a very good job illustrating this theory using about 30,000 dates published in Radio Carbon over the last 40 years. One of the impressive points Whitewall makes is the conspicuous absence of dates between 4,500 and 5,000 years ago illustrating a great catastrophe killing off plant and animal life world wide (the flood of Noah)!

I hope this helps your understanding of carbon dating. If you have any more questions about it don't hesitate to write.

(2.) I just listened to a series of lectures on archaeology put out by John Hopkins Univ. The lecturer talked at length about how inaccurate C14 Dating is (as 'corrected' by dendrochronology). The methodology is quite accurate, but dendrochronology supposedly shows that the C14 dates go off because of changes in the equilibrium over time, and that the older the dates the larger the error.

Despite this she continually uses the c14 dates to create 'absolute' chronologies. She says this is ok so long as you take into account the correction factors from dendrochronology. (They conveniently forget to mention that the tree ring chronology was arranged by C14 dating. The scientists who were trying to build the chronology found the tree rings so ambiguous that they could not decide which rings matched which (using the bristlecone pine). So they tested some of the ring sequences by C14 to put the sequences in the 'right' order. Once they did that they developed the overall sequence. And this big sequence is then used to 'correct' C14 dates. talk of circular reasoning!!!!

(3.) Even if the rate of decay is constant, without a knowledge of the exact ratio of C12 to C14 in the initial sample, the dating technique is still subject to question.

(4.) Traditional 14C testing assumes equilibrium in the rate of formation and the rate of decay. In fact, 14C is forming FASTER than the observed decay rate. This skews the 'real' answer to a much younger age.

You can find some further good information here:

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/dating.html#Carbon -- read the full page if you get the chance. And, there is a good overview of radiometric dating as well here:

http://www.creationinthecrossfire.com/documents/Radiomentric%20Dating/Radiometric%20Dating.html

[George S.]

Ice Core Dating
Posted by Don Keyes on September 03, 1998 at 22:58:20:

Do you know if ice core dating is accurate. I heard that Antarctica had ice rings like tree rings that go back 50,000 years undisturbed by a flood. If it is challenged do you know on what basis.


First Response


from SeeJay

These seasonal layers can be counted.

An ice core of over 2km in length has been drilled and carefully analysed. Yes, the number of layers indicates many tens of thousands of years.



Second Response

from gallo

I spent a year in Greenland (Thule) and went up onto the cap a few times. While there I had the opportunity to talk to a team of scientists who were loading supplies in order to head back out onto the cap. They were taking ice cores. They said that they were working in an area where the ice was about 9,000 ft. thick. I mentioned that I was amazed that the ice went up that far. He said that it didn't but that the weight of the ice actually depressed the land. I have since learned that this is called isostasy. At any rate, he talked about the seasonal layers in the ice. These layers can be counted only so far down because the weight of the ice compresses the layers more and more the deeper they are in the ice. Still, there are other means to study the composition of the ice that makes it possible to recognize the seasonal layering. I understand that the age of the ice at Camp Century (very near to where I was) is over 100,000 y. The ice at Camp Century isn't even half the thickness at the center of the cap.

I saw these layers first hand inside some ice caves in the cap. While I didn't count 4,000 layers, I could see several hundred. In my view it just isn't reasonable to claim that all of that ice was laid down in just a few years after the flood.



Third Response

From Helen

Gallo was right when he mentioned that compression would destroy the "rings." I believe some dating of ice cores is done via a O16/O14 ratio, but I am not sure. That ratio may be good only to indicate the climate at the time of snowfall.

At any rate, the main challenge I am aware of to standard ice core dating has to do with the fact that we really don't know if layers before known time were caused by many different storms in a few years or one season layering a year. We know what we see now, and many extrapolate backwards from that. However in the years following the flood (according to some creationist geologists and meteorologists) and/or in the time of Peleg (according to others), the oceans would have been warm enough to result in rapid evaporation, while the newly established air currents would have carried these massive amounts of evaporation towards the poles where storm after storm would have dumped not only most of what we see today but enough to result in an ice age.

In 1994 a couple of papers were presented at the International Conference on Creationism dealing with this subject: An Analytical Young-Earth Flow Model of the Ice Sheet Formation During the "Ice-Age," by Larry Vardiman, Ph.D.; and A Conceptual Transition Model of the Atmospheric Global Circulation Following the Genesis Flood, also by Vardiman. Also of note that year, and along lines of explanation was the presentation Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Global Flood Model of Earth History, by Kurt Wise, Ph.D., Steven Austin, Ph.D., John Baumgardner, Ph.D., D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D., Andrew Snelling, Ph.D., and Larry Vardiman, Ph.D.


Response to Helen

from Joe Meert

It amazes me that you feel freely qualified to propose answers to questions where you aren't. Please explain in more detail about oxygen isotopic record. None of the authors you mention have had any training in stable isotopes, so there word is as good as yours.

Response to Joe

from Helen

What I remember reading about isotopes of oxygen did not come from those articles, but from a discussion over a year ago, I think, with some other people -- teachers. That is why I felt pretty hesitant about it. It's not worth you jumping on, really. What little I remember had to do with the idea that a heavier isotope -- 18O -- would evaporate more slowly than a lighter one and thus a ratio could establish climatary differences during the time of the snowfalls. If I am wrong in what I remember, just say so.

Response to Helen

from Joe Meert

The isotopic composition of both oxygen and hydrogen deposited at the polar regions is primarily a function of temperature. The oxygen isotopes in ice cores are used to date the cores due to the seasonal variations.

One looks for summer layers (for example) as a function of depth. From that one can examine such things as precipitation and overall climatic change. There are complications and Tom Moore is probably better at describing these to you than I am, but basically you are looking at seasonal variations.



Response to Helen

from gallo

Just smoke, Helen.

It is known that the ice layers represent annual snows down to a certain level. There is nothing that distinguishes the layers below that from the ones above. So your conclusion is that since it isn't known for sure, it is reasonable to assume that the ice layers are somehow formed differently because your Bible tells you so. At any rate, the story invented to make the mythology of the Bible seem reasonable requires that you claim different causes.

There is no evidence that the ice layers going down for several thousand years were formed for any other reasons than those we know to be in effect today. To assume, without evidence, that any other cause is reasonable, is irrational at best. "It cudda been" isn't science, Helen. Besides, I doubt that you can cram 100,000 storms into 4000 years. Your whole story is nothing more than imagination.

Response to gallo

from Helen

"It cudda been."

This is what I hear mostly from evolutionists, gallo -- especially in regard to transitionals...:-)
In the meantime, there is nothing unscientific about looking for other explanations, biblical or not. Science does that all the time, right?

Reply to Helen

from gallo

It is unscientific when you propose those other explanations without evidence. As far as science is concerned, they are meaningless. In other words, pseudoscience.

Response from Helen: there goes evolution......(nt) Helen 14:12:56 9/04/98 (1)

______________


Ice Core Dating

Posted by Helen on September 04, 1998 at 18:53:36:

Joe said he would explain to me about oxygen isotopes if I answered him about why I posted something the way I did. So I responded, and he posted his explanation. Some background here, because I want to continue the questions regarding this subject:

I had heard the theory/idea some time ago that O16 and O14 could be checked in relationship to each other in ice core samples to check temperature and climate conditions at the time of the snowfall. I had also thought that dating was mentioned in regard to this. I mentioned this in a response to someone interested in ice cores further down and Joe promptly jumped on it, telling me I should not post what I did not know about. So I asked him to explain to me what I said was wrong or what was right. This is his answer:

The isotopic composition of both oxygen and hydrogen deposited at the polar regions is primarily a function of temperature. The oxygen isotopes in ice cores are used to date the cores due to the seasonal variations.
One looks for summer layers (for example) as a function of depth. From that one can examine such things as precipitation and overall climatic change.
There are complications and Tom Moore is probably better at describing these to you than I am, but basically you are looking at seasonal variations.

So, first of all, my memory had served me right and there was no reason to jump on my post regarding that. But that aside, if it is possible for anyone here to walk in my shoes for just a bit, let me ask some questions from a YEC point of view:

Understanding that it takes FAR more snowfall than present to establish the ice caps, and understanding that it also requires warmer water to evaporate faster if not also a generally warmer climate to hold that evaporated water until air currents reached the poles, isn't it wrong to extrapolate backwards just from what we see today?

If it is possible that the world was different then from what we know today, then what would have happened post Flood or at the time of Peleg, when there are good reasons to think the ocean waters somewhat warmer than now, as well as the atmosphere? If either catastrophe disturbed the climatic patterns of the world very much (and one would presume that they would), then many storms of varying intensities AND temperatures would have arrived over the poles in rapid succession. It seems to me that this would produce the same things we see in the ice cores that are now attributed to a long series of unchanging seasons.

Now, guys, I have spent a lot of time working on posts discussing evolutionism seriously in the past, especially in regards to mutations, etc. Agree or disagree, you have to admit the time on my part! So I am asking for time now from you. Not mocking, not throwing stuff up in the air and laughing about it -- but the time to think some of this through. Yes, I will try to find out more as we go and different things are brought up, if they are, but for now, at first, why wouldn't this be an acceptable model to work with theoretically?


Response

from Dire Puppy

Antarctic Ice Cores

http://147.66.8.17/aad/sci/glacio/issues_glacio/issues_glacio.html

Response to Dire Puppy

Posted by Helen on September 05, 1998 at 23:42:17:

I have reproduced the article here so that I can respond to it in context. First of all, thank you for the link to it.
Before I begin, I want to mention that the dating and the article are done with the presupposition of both long ages and not only uniformitarianism but gradualism. Understanding that I do not accept these presuppositions and will be looking at the evidence presented from the standpoint of recent creation and catastrophic interruptions in history, I will approach the article from a "devil's advocate" point of view as far as evolutionists are concerned. The quoted article is in italics.

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, highest and driest continent on Earth. That's right - the driest ! Antarctica is a desert. The annual precipitation of snow, averaged across the continent, is about 30 centimetres, which is equivalent to about 10 centimetres of water. In some locations as little as 2 centimetres (water equivalent) is recorded.

For those confused by metrics, 10cm is a little less than 4 inches. 2cm is, very roughly, about 1 1/2 inches

Because of the low temperatures, however, there is little or no melt. Thus the snow has accumulated year after year for thousands of years and, with time, is compressed to ice to form the Antarctic ice sheet.

For future reference, please note here that gradualism is presumed.

Approximately 98 per cent of the Antarctic continent is covered by the ice sheet which is on average about 2,500 metres thick and, at it's deepest location, 4,700 metres thick. It is due to this thick ice mass that Antarctica is, on average, the highest continent. Since the ice sheet is formed by the accumulation of snow year after year, by drilling from the surface down through the ice sheet, we drill our way back in time. Ice drills are designed to collect a core as they cut through the ice, so samples are collected that are made up of ice deposited (in the form of snow) many thousands of years ago.
As the snow is deposited on top of the ice sheet each year, it traps different chemicals and impurities which are dissolved in the ice. The ice and impurities hold information about the Earth's environment and climate at the time of deposition. A variety of different analyses techniques are used to extract that information.

Climate Change

One measurement, the oxygen isotope ratio or delta value, measured using a mass spectrometer on melted samples of the ice, gives us an indication of the temperature at the time the ice was deposited as snow. Measuring the delta value at many depths through the ice core is equivalent to measuring the air temperature at many times in the past. Thus, a climatic history is developed. Climatic temperature against time from delta measurements taken on the ice core drilled at the Russian station, Vostok, in central Antarctica (Figure 2). Available data from this ice core so far extends back about 160,000 years. However, drilling of the core still continues, and it is expected that, when drilling is completed in a few years time, an age of 500,000 years will have been reached. Starting on the right-hand side of the graph at about 140,000 years ago, the climate was about 6°C colder than it is today. This was an ice age period. Then at about 130,000 years ago, there was a quite rapid warming period until about 125,000 years ago, when the climate was, perhaps, 1°C or 2°C warmer than today. These short warmer periods are called inter-glacials. We are in an inter-glacial now. From 120,000 to about 20,000 years ago, there was a long period of cooling temperatures, but with some ups and downs of a degree or two. This was the Wisconsin Period, known as the last Great Ice Age. From about 18,000 or 19,000 years ago to about 15,000 years ago, the climate went through another warming period to the next inter-glacial, - the one we are now in.

What is being seen here is two possible ice ages, the first one being somewhat less and perhaps shorter than the second. Removing the time element, which is gradualistic and uniformitarian, what might just as easily be seen is the ice age that is postulated as arising out of the Flood catastrophe, with a warmer period for several hundred years, and then the massive volcanic activity thought to be present at the time of Peleg, which would have resulted in a much more severe ice age. During the formation of both ice ages, the storms would have had to be constant, one on top of another with very little time in between, and very fierce. This would also account for what is seen in the ice cores.
Figure 2 also includes a graph of the concentration of dust in the ice core. High concentrations of dust occur at the same times as the colder periods shown on the temperature graph. There are several possible reasons for this: the air is drier during colder periods, thus, there may have been more deserts; the ice sheets were more extensive and sea levels lower, thus there would have been more exposed, dry land; there may also have been more storms, or at least more violent storms. All of these factors would increase the amount of dust lifted into the atmosphere to then be blown over Antarctica and deposited with the snow on the surface of the ice sheet.

Colder periods are normally times of less precipitation, as cold air is dry. The writer here is postulating more deserts by presuming a worldwide cold and dry climate. I think he may be presuming too much. A warmer world in the tropic and temperate zones, particularly where the oceans are concerned (a few degrees warmer temperature in the oceans would vastly increase the rate of evaporation), would provide the precipitation for the massive snowfalls required for the laying down of not only the polar caps but for the advent of the ice age(s) as well. The winds and the storms that would result from the temporary increasing disparity betwen arctic/antarctic and tropical temperatures would drive large amounts of dust toward the poles in windstorms. One thing I noticed here is that the author also mentions more land being exposed during the ice age(s), and when I mentioned that, I was ridiculed on this forum. One thing that is not mentioned in this article is the composition of the dust. Does it show high or low amounts of volcanic material? And at which levels? I would be curious to know this.

Figure 2. Dust concentration, climatic air temperature (as inferred from del measurements), and concentration of carbon dioxide and methane from measurements of trapped air are plotted against time before present. (After Lorius et al., 1993 and Petit et al., 1990).

Please go to the link provided in the post above this for the charts.

Greenhouse Gases

The snow near the surface of the ice sheet is like a sponge with channels of air between the snow grains. As more and more snow is accumulated on top, the underlying snow is compressed into ice and the air forms bubbles in the ice. Ice cores therefore can be analysed not just for the chemical and physical properties of the ice, but also for the properties of the air trapped in the ice. These bubbles are actual samples of the atmosphere up to thousands of years ago. So, analysis of them can tell us much about the atmosphere in the past.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane measured in the air bubbles trapped in the ice are shown in Figure 2 along with temperature and dust graphs. Carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gases and the similarity between the graphs for their concentrations and the temperature change graph indicates that the greenhouse effect is real and that it has been around for many thousands of years.

That is only if you are presuming many thousands of years. I studied that chart for some time. What I saw corresponds to the idea that a post flood ice age would have less dust due to winds because everything was wet. But then you have that period in between ice ages where you see a rise in carbon dioxide as the plant life on earth was re-established and thrived. This corresponds with the rapid rise in temperature which melted the ice. Now, keep in mind that we are ONLY talking about the one pole here -- the south one. These measurements do NOT tell us what the rest of the world was like at the time. As we move to the left in graph two, or toward the present, there is a sudden rise in the dust factor. This would easily result from volcanism and the changes in relative air temperatures, and even changes in relative areas of sea temperatures, around the world. The would cause the massive winds that seek to equalize the temperatures. More dust at a time of increasing cold and the rapid onset of a much worse ice age. Then, to the far left of the graph, a rapid rise in temperature again as the dust settles down and the temperatures and thus the pressures have also settled. The earth warms again and the ices melt, leaving what is left on the poles.
You see, if one does not presume long ages, many rapid storms in a time of fluctuating temperatures and world upheaval can account for what we see in that graph.

Has there been a significant increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution?
The answer is yes, as can be seen from Figure 3 which shows the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, measured in the bubbles from an Antarctic ice core from Law Dome near Australia's Casey Station. The concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from about 280 parts per million to 350 parts per million, which is a rise of 25 per cent since the middle of last century. Nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases also show similar trends from analysis of the ice-core bubbles. The Law Dome ice core is at a location where the snow accumulation is much higher than at Vostok. Thus, the time scale for the Law Dome core is expanded and it can provide us with more detailed information about recent climate changes, though it can not go back in time as far as the deeper Vostok ice core.

[snip the caption for figure 3]

Ice Core Dating

By sampling at very fine intervals down the ice core, and provided that each annual layer of snow is thick enough, several samples from each year may be measured for the different chemical properties. It has already been seen that the delta value is related to air temperature when the snow was deposited. Because it is warmer in summer and cooler in winter, and provided the snow layers are not too disturbed by wind, the delta value can show annual cycles. Thus, these values can be used to date the ice core. Hydrogen peroxide is created in the atmosphere by a chemical reaction that requires ultraviolet light. There is a lot less ultraviolet light in the winter than in the summer in Antarctica. Thus, measurements of hydrogen peroxide dissolved in the ice also provide a good annual cycle indicator.

Some observations here: first of all the dust would have had to be produced by winds bringing it in. Therefore the pattern is upset from the outset. Secondly, it is presumed that the variations in temperatures are correlative to summer and winter variations. However this does not necessarily have to be the case. Uniformitarian gradualism is a presumption which rests on a shaky foundation here simply because of the presence of the varying amount of dust if nothing else! The only thing indicating "annual" cycles in the ice core is the presumption of the person interpreting the data.

In order to date the ice cores accurately, the annual layers need to be thick enough to obtain about ten measurement samples from each year. The thickness of the annual layers depends on how much snow falls each year.

Or each storm......

Thus, to obtain an ice core from which accurate, detailed dating can be derived, we need to find an Antarctic site where the snow accumulation is relatively high.

Which could also mean it got blown there in snowdrifts during windstorms.

This would usually mean we need to find a low elevation site, but it must also be a site where there is no melt. If the snow was to melt at any time during the year, some measurements such as those involving trapped gases would be spoiled. In addition, the annual layers would be destroyed by the melt water which would, effectively, wash the evidence away.

And the only way they have of estimating melt rate is to take what we have today and presume it has been that way for a very long time. This kind of gradualism presumes no catastrophes, no bolide hits, nothing to disturb the quiet ebb an flow of the seasons. I do not think this is a reasonable presumption when the rest of the world is looked at and the evidence for catastrophes of various kinds is so clear.

Such locations (high snow accumulation, yet low summer temperatures) are not easy to find. One such location, however, is near the summit of Law Dome, approximately 120 kilometres from Casey Station, where an ice core has been drilled 1,200 metres through the ice sheet to the underlying bedrock. Accurate dating for this core has been obtained back to 8,000 years ago using annual cycles obtained by analysis of delta value and hydrogen peroxide. A section of the graph of delta value and hydrogen peroxide is shown in Figure 4, along with the year. The ice core depth for this section is 139 to 128 metres, corresponding to the dates 1807 to 1826 AD.

Figure 4. Detailed analysis of section of the DSS ice core (summit of Law Dome, Antarctica) showing del value, Peroxide concentration, Sulphate concentration and Conductivity values. Section of ice core is from 128 to 139 metres depth, covering the time period 1808 to 1826, and including evidence of two volcanic eruptions.

I am curious to know the sulfate measurements for core depths that are dated thousands of years ago.....

Volcanic Horizons

Measurements of electrical conductivity are also made on the ice cores - these are closely linked to the acidity of the ice. Conductivity shows an annual cycle and is higher in the summer snow than the winter snow. This is probably because of chemical reactions in the atmosphere involving dimethyl sulphide (a chemical produced in greater quantities during the summer months by marine algae and phytoplankton), which result in production of low concentrations of sulphuric acid which is then distributed over the ice sheet. Sulphuric acid is often blasted into the atmosphere by volcanic eruptions. Therefore, the conductivity in the ice cores sometimes shows a peak at the depth corresponding to the time shortly after a volcanic eruption.

I am not criticizing the hesitancy in attributing the effect to a particular cause in the first sentences of this paragraph. I applaud it. But I do think it should be noted.

A more reliable method of detecting volcanic eruptions from the ice cores however, is to measure sulphate directly. Sulphate also exists in sea salt which is deposited on the ice sheet in small quantities from wind-blown sea spray. Thus, to examine the sulphate derived from volcanoes, the sea-salt sulphate needs first to be accounted for. This can be easily done by measuring the quantities of other chemicals of marine origin.

On Figure 4, along with the accurate dating of the ice core from delta value and hydrogen peroxide, plots of conductivity and non-sea-salt Sulphate are also included. The conductivity graph does indicate annual cycles, but more interesting are the large peaks in this and in the sulphate graphs, which occur at about 1810 and between about 1816 and 1818 AD. The 1816-18 peak is due to the eruption in 1815 of Tambora, a volcano in Indonesia. The peak in about 1810 certainly seems to be due to another volcanic eruption, but none is known to have occurred around then. Volcanic eruptions are useful to glaciologists as a check on the other ice core dating techniques. On the other hand, there are previously unknown volcanic eruptions have been discovered from the evidence from the ice cores.

For me, this article ended much too soon. If you know of more data and other articles online, please let me know. I'll do some checking myself. Thank you for finding this one, Dire Puppy.

Very seriously, my main purpose in going through this paper this way is to show how the presuppositions determined the conclusions. If I presuppose a recent creation, I can look at the same data and everything fits quite nicely for me, too. In short, and this is a note for the Christians here -- God has left us enough evidence to confirm our faith but not to prove it scientifically. Data can be seen different ways, and quite validly so, depending on the presuppositions involved. One cannot look to the evidence to somehow prove that one's faith is true. If that were the case, faith would not be faith, but simply a logical conclusion. God asks us for faith in concordance with our reason, but not dependent upon it.

Response to Helen

Posted by B on September 07, 1998 at 1040:

In reference to Figure 2, Helen wrote:

I studied that chart for some time. What I saw corresponds to the idea that a post flood ice age would have less dust due to winds because eveything was wet.

**I'd be surprised by any dust at all if that were my model.

Helen further wrote:

But then you have that period in between ice ages where you see a rise in carbon dioxide as the plant life on earth was re-established and thrived. This corresponds with the rapid rise in temperature which melted the ice.

**Since plants fix carbon dioxide, how can a rise in carbon dioxide be equated to the spread of plant life? I think you need to take a biology class. I also think you are trying too hard to make the data fit an invalid worldview.

**One indicator of annual cycles that you failed to criticize was the accumulation of hydrogen peroxide. Since the formation of hydrogen peroxide is tied to UV levels, as long as the Earth has been tilted there would have been annual variations of UV levels near the South Pole. How can a catastrophic flood model and the one storm per layer you have to invoke account for what can be explained very simply as seasonal variations in hydrogen peroxide? You might also mention how moutain formation due to rapid plate movement factors into this as well.

Response to B

Posted by Helen on September 07, 1998 at 10:59

1. Living near the flood prone Calif. central valley, I can testify that the surface will dry quickly and produce some dust during winds, even though the soil a little further down is still wet. The more sandy the soil the more the winds can raise in a shorter time after the rains.
2. Plants don't grow well without the CO2. Therefore I repeat that a rise in plant life and a rise in CO2 levels should be contemporaneous.
3. Regarding your other points, I was staying with what the article presented. Earth axis tilt, mountain building etc. were not mentioned in the article and therefore not in my response. The purpose of my response was to present the idea that data can be interpreted different ways by different people. However, if you had read what I wrote, you would have seen that I never postulated only one storm, nor did I attribute everything to Noah's flood. And just a thought regarding UV levels and the H2O2 levels -- the amount of UV reaching earth is hugely dependent upon a number of variables, including the force of the magnetic field, the size of the ozone hole in the Antarctic, how much the air might be clogged with volcanic debris, etc. What we see is mostly seasonal or postulated as epochal, but that does not mean we are right in that conclusion regarding how things used to be or were at one time.

[George S.]

Don't Genesis 1 and 2 present contradictory creation accounts?
Genesis 1
Day one - Heavens and earth are created. "Let there be light." Day and Night.
Day two - Atmospheric waters separated from earth waters.
Day three - Land appears separating the seas. Vegetation is made.
Day four - Sun, moon, stars are made.
Day five - Sea life and birds are made.
Day six - Land animals, creeping things, and man (male and female) are made.
Genesis 2
States heaven and earth were created. There was no plant yet on earth, no rain yet, and no man. But, a mist rose watering the surface of the ground. Then the Lord formed man from dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Finally, God made Eve.
There is no contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 is a detailed explanation of the six days of creation, day by day. Genesis two is a recap and a more detailed explanation of the sixth day, the day that Adam and Eve were made. The recap is stated in Gen. 2:4, "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven." Then, Moses goes on to detail the creation of Adam and Eve as is seen in verses 7 thru 24 of Gen. 2. Proof that it is not a creative account is found in the fact that animals aren't even mentioned until after the creation of Adam. Why? Probably because their purpose was designated by Adam. They didn't need to be mentioned until after Adam was created .

[George S.]

Introduction to Bible Difficulties and Bible Contradictions
by Matt Slick

Bible difficulties, or apparent Bible contradictions, exist. The opponents of Christianity often use them in their attempts to discredit Christianity. Sometimes these attacks undermine the faith of Christians who either don't understand the issues or don't have the resources to deal with them.

Opponents of Christianity will cite what they consider a Bible contradiction or difficulty by comparing one verse to another (or more) that seems to disagree with the first. In doing this, several verses are often referenced as being contradictory or problematic. Therefore, to make this section of CARM easy to use, it is arranged by verse for easy lookup. Since many of the same "difficulties" deal with one verse in opposition to another or even several others, I have listed all the verses addressed in the same answer. This makes the initial list look larger than it really is. For example, how many animals did Noah bring into the ark? Genesis 6:19-20 says two while Gen. 7:2-3 mentions seven. Therefore, both verses are listed and both links point to the same answer.

The Originals are Inspired, not the copies.

What a lot of Christians don't know is that the autographs (original writings) are inspired, not the copies. The autographs are the original writings--the original documents penned by the biblical writers. The copies are copies of inspired documents. The copies are not themselves "inspired"; that is, they have no guarantee of being 100% textually pure. But don't worry, the Bible manuscripts are 98.5% textually pure. Only a very small amount of information is in question because we have repetitive facts, instructions, and information found elsewhere in the Bible. Nevertheless, through the copying method over the years, various textual problems have arisen. Following is a list of the types of errors that have occurred in copying the manuscripts. I've used English as examples instead of going into the original languages for examples.

Dittography - Writing twice what should have been written once. Example: writing "latter" instead of "later." "Latter" means nearest the end. "Later" means after something else.
Fission - Improperly dividing one word into two words. Example: changing "nowhere" into "now here."
Fusion - Combining the last letter of one word with the first letter of the next word. Example: "Look it is there in the cabinet... or Look it is therein the cabinet."
Haplography - Writing once what should have been written twice. Example: "later" instead of "latter." "Later" means after something else. "Latter" means nearest the end.
Homophony - Writing a word with a different meaning for another word when both words have the exact same pronunciation. Example: Meat and meet have the exact same sound but different meanings. Also, there and their and they're are another example.
Metathesis - An improper exchange in the order of letters. Example: Instead of writing "mast," someone writes "mats," or "cast" and cats."
Does this mean we cannot trust the Bible?

Does this mean that the Bible we hold in our hand is not inspired? Not at all. Inspiration comes from God, and when He inspired the Bible it was perfect. Our copies of the original documents are not perfect, but they are very close to being so. The critics often erringly assume that even the copies are supposed to be perfect. But when we point out that God never said the copies would be perfect, they then ask how can the Bible be trusted at all? Quite simply, it is redundant in its facts and information and the amount of material that has any variation at all is so minute compared to the whole Bible that the Bible is considered to be almost 100% accurately copied. Furthermore, the copyist errors present no problems doctrinally.

Still, some will say that since there are, for example, copyist errors then we must throw out the entire Bible. But this argument is very weak. Are we to throw out a science textbook because there is a misspelled word or two in it? Does this mean that the whole book cannot be trusted? Of course not. Furthermore, compared to other ancient documents, the New Testament, for example, has far more textual evidence in its favor than any other ancient writing. Please consider the chart below.1

Author When Written Earliest Copy Time Span No. of Copies
Homer (Iliad) 900 BC 400 BC 500 years 643
Ceasar (The Gallic Wars) 100 - 44 BC 900 AD 1,000 years 10
Plato (Tetralogies) 427 - 347 BC 900 AD 1,200 years 7
Aristotle 384 - 322 BC 1,100 AD 1,400 years 49
Herodotus (History) 480 - 425 BC 900 AD 1,300 years 8
Euripedes 480 - 406 BC 1,100 AD 1,500 years 9
New Testament 50 - 90 A.D. 130 AD
30 years 24,000


If the Bible cannot be trusted as being reliable because it has only a small percentage of copyist errors, then neither can the above documents that have far less textual support be trusted. In other words, the critics (to be consistent) would have to reject the Iliad, The Gallic Wars, Plato's Tetralogies, Aristotle's works, Hoerodetus' history, and Euripedes' writings. Are the critics willing to disregard all those writings -- which are far less well preserved -- if they throw out the Bible as being reliable? They should if they are fair in how they apply their criticism. Since basically no one discards those writings as being so bad that they can't be trusted, why would anyone apply the double standard to the Bible . . . unless they have an agenda.

We can see that the Bible is an ancient document that has withstood thousands of years of transmission with remarkable accuracy and clarity, far more so than the great works of old listed in the chart above. We can trust it to be what it says it is: the word of God.

[Vangelovski]

lol, here you have your example ^ you just provided it yourself.

How's a statement of fact "hateful" or "denigrating"?

[Delodephius]

Day one - Heavens and earth are created. "Let there be light." Day and Night.

Day four - Sun, moon, stars are made.

Wait, so what was the source of light before the Sun was made?