Dendrochronology: Getting at the root of the problem with a young earth

[Rational Gaze]

Lao seems to be uncritcally following the camp of higher criticism. Here is a tip: we have moved beyond such outdated scholarship.

[Rational Gaze]

I posted this on another thread awhile back concerning the worldwide traditions attesting to massive floods including world-spanning deluges that might be pertinent:

Well, that makes a lot of sense. I was trying to point out to people on the SB last night that there is insufficent geological evidence for a global flood in the manner described by YECs, that the flood of Genesis was a local one, and that flood legends of other cultures were based on other floods. They tried to counter that ancient people would have "figured it out" yet this, of course, makes no consideration of ancient people's society and culture. Thanks for the post rogue.

[Augustine2004]

I think Glenn Morton's theory should be mentioned that the Flood occurred millions of years ago, when the Atlantic Ocean burst into the Mediterranean basin, at that time dry land.

[Rational Gaze]

Something tells me that there weren't actually people back then.

[lao tzu]

Lao fails to realize that Noah and his family might not be scribes. Even in Jesus' time most people could not read or write. How long after the Flood would writing be invented? Or was it before? If not before--which makes sense--we still have oral tradition that may have existed long before Hebrew became established. Surely oral Hebrew developed long before written Hebrew, and maybe Noah's family didn't speak Hebrew.

Of course Lao would scoff and say there was no Noah, just whatever and whateverother, who spoke whateverlanguage.

Consider how quickly Spanish, French, provencal, etc., developed after the end of the Western Roman Empire. How rapidly did English develop after the Norman invasion, 1066?

Lao seems to be uncritcally following the camp of higher criticism. Here is a tip: we have moved beyond such outdated scholarship.

First, Lao is not a name. It's an adjective. Second, my screen name is deliberately created in lower case. Third, my name is Jesse.

It's a simple fact that the Mesopotamian king lists and flood tales predate the biblical tales. In fact, they predate the entire bible. There's nothing at all unusual about noting that stories demonstrably closer to an event represent a less modified version of a story. Nor is it unusual to note that oral histories do not fare well in opposition to written histories. The suggestion that an oral history somehow managed to survive, intact, for more than a thousand years, in support of a religious tradition that had not yet emerged, in a language that had not yet emerged, in opposition to a history which was not merely written, but publicly read at a yearly festival during the period the Jews were in captivity in Babylon ... is not credible.

What we have in the bible is an amazing perspective on the beliefs and practices of an ancient society. There is no good reason to waste this opportunity to see these people as they were. Certainly not just to support a minority position within Christian theology.

As ever

[Rational Gaze]

You need to wake up to the 21st century son.

[lao tzu]

Something tells me that there weren't actually people back then.

Glenn insists that Australopithecenes were human, that they could interbreed with us if they were present today, and that it took them millions of years to redevelop metal-working, writing, and civilization ... at which point they were granted a miraculous transmission of the flood which occurred millions of years in our past.

There are other reasons to scoff at his suggestion, but that's enough to begin with.

[franktalk]

Rogue06,

Thanks for reposting that information. One group of people may see that a common theme of a flood story is meaningful. Another group of people will see that the differences in the flood stories are meaningful. So based on your current beliefs you will view the data through your own goggles. Most of what is written is a WAG and opinion. This is why I don't bother with any of this kind of data. We have very few pieces of data and even that data may be so far from the truth that it is meaningless. But of course the question now must be asked: What is the truth? From my perspective we can't find truth in a mixed up bag of data from the past that may or may not represent real events. So the past is an unknown and is best described as a belief since no one can prove a thing. And of course those who say they can, arrive at that conclusion by making many assumptions and then building on those assumptions.

It really boils down to what you want to believe. If you want to believe in God and supernatural events then the past is a strange place filled with unknowns. But if you want to believe that the past can be known by natural processes you start with some assumptions that allow that view to produce results. So your end goal will determine which path you take to understanding the past.

And of course the dating of items from the past comes with its own set of assumptions. So one can ignore the dating of items by scientific methods and instead use a belief system. This is what I have chosen to do.

Frank

[lao tzu]

You need to wake up to the 21st century son.

If you've any more bromides in place of actual argument, please feel free to share.

And what's with the "son" stuff? I'm old enough to be your grandpappy.

[Rational Gaze]

If you've any more bromides in place of actual argument, please feel free to share.

Nah, I was thinking of keeping them all to myself. But seriously, the whole JEDP, Israelities wrote the OT after the exile has long been put to rest.

And what's with the "son" stuff? I'm old enough to be your grandpappy.

I always assumed you were in your 30s or late 20s.

[rogue06]

This is why I don't bother with any of this kind of data.

And why we are unlikely to see eye to eye in these matters.

It really boils down to what you want to believe.

No. I would say its where all the evidence leads whether you like it or not but then as you say that you don't bother with any of this kind of data.

[franktalk]

No. I would say its where all the evidence leads whether you like it or not but then as you say that you don't bother with any of this kind of data.

Apparently you seem to need facts to believe something is true. And of course these facts must meet some kind of criteria for you to accept them. Now I ask if you believe in God? You of course don't need to answer that question. But let me ask if you believe that miracles are possible? Let me also ask if those miracles are part of the rules of nature that science accepts? I suspect that any supernatural event would not be the realm of science. These questions lead to a few possible views of the world. I will just write about three of them. One view is that nothing exist except natural processes and matter. This view describes reality as just what we can examine with our senses and equipment we make. Another view is that everything can be explained in terms of natural processes and matter yet a God does exist but He does not concern Himself with man. God in this view is limited to areas that are unknown to us and as we expand our understanding then God occupies only that shrinking space with the unknowns. A third position is that there is a God and that God is active. And of course being God He has used the world for His purposes and changed it when ever He wished. This is my view. I hold this view because my beliefs in God are more important that any study of the parts of the world. So to me a study of the world is secondary and I will not allow it to interfere with my belief system. So like I said before, your end goal (view of the world) will determine what you see as truth.

Since this thread is about time maybe we should talk about how things are dated. Many items are dated by science as millions of years old. But the methods used depend on certain assumptions being true. If you accept the assumptions then you automatically accept the conclusions based on those assumptions. But what if the assumptions are wrong? Can you prove that the dating of items do not have any assumptions?

So the evidence you speak of comes to us clean and contains no assumptions that can't be proved? You write as if the evidence is absolute? Is that right? Is there no power in the universe that provides truth except physical evidence as approved by science?

[Rational Gaze]

Fail.

[Tiggy]

Since this thread is about time maybe we should talk about how things are dated. Many items are dated by science as millions of years old. But the methods used depend on certain assumptions being true. If you accept the assumptions then you automatically accept the conclusions based on those assumptions. But what if the assumptions are wrong? Can you prove that the dating of items do not have any assumptions?

FT, every last thing we do in life has some sort of assumptions tied to it. Every time you take a step you assume that the ground isn't going to open up in front of you. Every time you toss a ball to your child you assume that the Earth's gravity isn't going to change and alter the ball's arc. Every time you take a breath of air you assume the O2 content will be sufficient to keep you from asphyxiating.

The way we deal with these assumptions is to validate them enough to consider them to be factual - gravity isn't going to suddenly change, the composition of the atmosphere isn't suddenly going to change. The same hold true for the assumptions involved in dendrochronology, or any type of dating. Trees didn't grow 10-20 rings a year in the past then suddenly change to 1 ring per year once we started measuring. Lake varves didn't get deposited 50-100 per year and then suddenly change to 1 per year when we started keeping records. The half-life of radioisotopes didn't suddenly change by six orders of magnitude once we built detectors to measure the decay.

Claiming "the assumptions are bad so dating is invalid" is the worse kind of cheap rhetorical excuse, which explains why YECs rely on the technique so heavily.

You're better than that.

- T

[rogue06]

Apparently you seem to need facts to believe something is true. And of course these facts must meet some kind of criteria for you to accept them. Now I ask if you believe in God?...

Haven't we had this conversation? You know the one where I cite all the passages in the Bible telling us to look at different aspects of nature in order to gain a bit of insight pertaining to His might and majesty? And the Biblical passages telling us that God does not lie to us therefore the record He tells us to look at is neither false nor impossible to get any evidence from, or why would He instruct us to look at it if it were? Yes, I think we have.

Since this thread is about time maybe we should talk about how things are dated. Many items are dated by science as millions of years old. But the methods used depend on certain assumptions being true. If you accept the assumptions then you automatically accept the conclusions based on those assumptions. But what if the assumptions are wrong? Can you prove that the dating of items do not have any assumptions?

If it is all merely based upon assumptions then how do you explain the complete convergence of the evidence (I didn't ask if you think the evidence matters, I am specifically asking how do you explain them all agreeing with one another)?