Re: The overwhelming Silence.

Glenn Morton (GRMorton@gnn.com)
Wed, 25 Sep 1996 21:29:33

Oliver Beck wrote:
>Hello,
>
>this is the first time I post to this group and so I will introduce
>me at the beginning. I am German student of physics at the university of
>Stuttgart(Southwest of Germany). I believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and
>Saviour and that the bible is the word of God. Thus I am very interested
>in the creation/evolution topic.
>My English may sometimes be not correct, please tell me in a friendly
>tone.
>

Your English is better than my Chinese. You seem to have a good grasp of
English.

>Here is one.But you should give more time to respond.F
>or example,I can only mail from university,which is closed the weekend.

You are correct, here is a response. I have been gone for a couple of days
and I think this is the only substantive response. I applaud you for that.
I sent the original note on the Australian find to two different christian
lists. I only sent the silence note out to this list. You responded to the
"silence" note, no one on the other list has responded at all after 4 days.
On internet a 4 day old message is unlikely to be replied to.

>You accuse others of ignoring the data, but what you cite aren't data, but
>data with interpretations. If somebody is saying (on the basis of geology)
>something has happened thus long ago, it's always an interpretation. It's
>a historical statement which comes from interpreting the data. What you
>can really measure or observe are the fossils in the layer ,the isotopic
>composition of the material and so on.

I would say that all of science is data and interpretation of that data. Here
is the data: one monolith with 3500 circles, rocks surrounding the region are
covered with another 3200 circles. The circles extend 5 feet below the
present surface of the earth. 5 feet down, objects were found which could be
dated to 176,000 years B.P. An estimate of the age of the circles themselves
yields 75,000 years B.P.

Fact: there is no anatomically modern skeleton which dates earlier than
120,000 years BP. This is in Africa. By 90,000 years anatomically modern man
was in Palestine. Modern man did not get to Europe until around 35,000 years
ago. The earliest known homo sapiens sapiens occupation of Australia is around

40,000 years which is only shortly after anatomically modern humans reached
southeast Asia.(see Brian Fagan _The Journey From Eden_, p. 137)

Who made the monolith? It is not likely to have been anatomically modern
people. Future discoveries of course may over turn that. But as of now, this
is what the evidence says.

Here are the facts of christian apologetical positions: Hugh Ross says that
if there is any sign of artistic behavior prior to 75,000 years ago, that the
Bible is wrong. Conclusion? Is the Bible or Hugh Ross wrong?

Young earth position: The monolith has to be a post flood object and thus
must be only a few thousand years old. But of course they must reject all the
observable laws of physics to have the dating processes be flawed.

Theistic Evolution position: the object fits alright because no one really
knows how human fossil man is.

Progressive Creation: God may have created a being other than anatomically
modern man who engaged in art.

>I am not going to say that in this case the relative dating is false.As I
>know(please correct me when I'm false) most dating is done by looking at
>the fossils found in the strata(boostraigraphy). If this was the case in
>this dating I don't see any new problem, there is only the old one with
>the long ages.

Unfortunately, the concept that fossils found in the strata are the only way
people date the geologic column is absolutely wrong. This is often taught by
christian apologists who have never worked with geological and geophysical
data. It is more and more less likely to use fossils for dating. Absolute
dating processes aree available for the Middle Paleolithic. Carbon 14 works
back to 50,000 years B.P. Uranium dating can work back to 350,000 years,
thermoluminesence of burnt flint can dat an object from 100,000 to 500,000
years ago and Electron spin resonance applied to mammalian teeth are able to
date objects back to more than 1 million years ago. (see In Search of the
Neanderthals p. 58-59

>As to the relative order of findings, this suits very good to the view I
>have:homo erectus,neanderthals and homo sapiens are all humans, as we are.
>As created as the image of God.Thus it's very natural to find them having
>made art.
>

You would be amazed that lots of christians over here do not beleive that Homo
erectus can be human.

>If I have understood your article right,the had a heathen
>religion.Thus I would say no.
>

You misunderstood or I mis spoke. The Blood of Christ would be applicable to
them as morally accountable beings. The blood of Christ is not applicable
to my cat. If as Hugh Ross says, H. erectus is merely a primate mammalian
species with no sense of God, then the blood of Christ would not applie.

>Are evidence and data restricted to scientific findings? Does not faith
>rest on the fact of the resurrection witnessed by at least three hundred
>witnesses? I think that's the best proof you can have in history: The word
>of them that have seen it.
>

Christianity does rest upon the resurrection. The problem I see is that many
reject the Bible as God's word because they think it's history is flawed.

>Can you tell me this geologic data which are so loud. :-)

The Haymond formation of west Texas has more than 15,000 sandstone layers
greater than 5 mm thick. These layers are separated by shale. Shale is a very
fine grained material which is deposited slowly. Some animal loved to live in
the shale. This animal dug burrows into the shale. When a new sandstone was
deposited on top of the shale, it would fill the burrows with sand. Thus what
we see today is a sandstone with lots of "hair" beneath it where the burrows
used to be.

Since it takes time for the animals to dig burrows and it takes time for the
shale to be deposited after the sand is deposited, this sediment can not be
the result of a rapid process. There are 15,000 of these sandstones! This
means 15,000 cycles of sand being dumped on a shale filling the burrows; slow
shale deposition; animals repopulate and re-dig new burrows; and a new sand is
dumped. If you give 1 day for the re-colonization of each layer, this deposit
would represent 41 years. And there are lots of other rocks below the Haymond
which were also supposedly the result of a global flood.
(see Earle F. McBride, "Stratigraphy, Sedimentary Structures and Origin of the

Flysch and Pre-Flysch Rocks Marathon basin Texas," Dallas Geological Soc.
Guidebook, 1969, pp 87-88

>What we need is honesty,that's right.The 'creationist' 'research' is to
>often a very poor one. That's what was also said in the closing lecture of
>the last Int. Conf. on Creat. .

So why do they only invite those who agree with the young-earth paradigm?

glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm