The Anti-theist Thread

[emplynx]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
Why can't the universerse have no true beginning or end??? You can NOT name the smallest number or the largest number - nor can you come up with the smallest decimal number between 0 and 1. All those things have no beginning or end.

Just as Good proof for an eternal god as an eternal nothingness

[BeardofPants]

Go, Afro-Elf! Thanks for picking up the arguments, I was beginning to go numb in the head, from the insanity on this board! Great concise arguments, very well constructed. I don't know much about Aristotlian theory, except for that duality thing, and I didn't much think that was relevant to the arguments.

Regarding the previous theories, ie flat earth, and sun revolving around the Earth: they are Christian Dogma. No two ways about it. Scientists were 'hung, drawn, and quatered', for daring to go beyond the ideas of the day. Ditto, for opposing religious ideas. People have been known to be black listed for their beliefs.

[Khadrane]

Joshua 10:12-13
Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Aijalon." And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.

There are many lengends from ancient cultures about an extra ong day. Just thought that was cool.

Okay, this story must be enough to make you wonder if there's a God:
My uncle turned away from Christianity a long, long time ago. God told a lady who was a friend of my uncle's family that she wouldn't die until he became a Christian. Well, my uncle is still not a Christian, and the lady is 114 years old!!! (I'm not lying, either.)

And thanks to all you people who picked up for me when I had to go to sleep.

The prelunar landing predictions of evolutionary scientists gave great concern to the astronauts. Their predictions were that due to a presumed 4.5 billion year age of the moon and the rate of influx of dust and the lunar physical processes of rock break-up, the astronauts might be lost in a great depth of dust on the moon.4 Fortunately the evolutionary predictions of great dust depth were wrong. Our astronauts were not lost in the predicted "quicksand" of age-accumulated dust on the moon. The creationist predictions of only a thin layer of dust were correct.

There wasn't very much dust because the earth and moon weren't as old as they thought. It makes sense. Really.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Khadrane


There wasn't very much dust because the earth and moon weren't as old as they thought. It makes sense. Really.

Small problem, there were no creationists when man landed on the moon. The landing sight was chosen for it's properties of being flat rock. The moon's surface is not homogenous. Anyone who predicted "quicksand" was not a very informed scientist. This was certainly not a widely held view at the time. You can find people who will tell you that no one went to the moon. That doesn't make it a representative view. Anyone who expected to find heavy weathering on a body with no weather or liquid water is not thinking clearly. The moon rotates at the same rate it revolves so the same face is always exposed to the sun, therefore there can not be even thermal weathering. The primary force altering the lunar rock is by impacts of extralunar bodies. Weathering and age are not ridgidly proportional so it doesn't make sense. The radiometric dating of the lunar material brought back proves that.

[Khadrane]

Anyone who expected to find heavy weathering on a body with no weather or liquid water is not thinking clearly.

The dust wasn't from the weathering. The moon has no atmosphere, so all the space dust has been piling up on the moon. And if no one believed in the dust, why did they spend a ton of money making the spaceship so it wouldn't sink?

[afro-elf]

There are many lengends from ancient cultures about an extra ong day. Just thought that was cool.

they have a lot of legends about gods other than the christian one do you imply that they are real too?

God told a lady who was a friend of my uncle's family that she wouldn't die until he became a Christian. Well, my uncle is still not a Christian, and the lady is 114 years old!!! (I'm not lying, either.)

I think that is just an ancedote. Do this you provide me with some contrete proof and PM me . then I'll might go Hmmmmm.

otherwise it is hearsay

The dust wasn't from the weathering. The moon has no atmosphere, so all the space dust has been piling up on the moon. And if no one believed in the dust, why did they spend a ton of money making the spaceship so it wouldn't sink?

didn't you read this

Weathering and age are not ridgidly proportional so it doesn't make sense. The radiometric dating of the lunar material brought back proves that.

the RETURN module was made not to sink because it was made to to hit WATER.

Have you not even seen the lunar landing vechile?

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Khadrane
There wasn't very much dust because the earth and moon weren't as old as they thought. It makes sense. Really.

A couple of flaws there. There is no literature that even points remotely to astronauts being scared of 'quick sand'.

Also, consider the vacuum of space, you really think it's not going act upon layers upon layers of dust? And consider the temperatures... Very Very Cold. No moisture, maybe ice. How is this going to produce 'quick sand'. Consider also, the lack of gravity: how would you sink? Hmmmm....

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Khadrane


The dust wasn't from the weathering. The moon has no atmosphere, so all the space dust has been piling up on the moon. And if no one believed in the dust, why did they spend a ton of money making the spaceship so it wouldn't sink?

Firstly, in the vacuum of space, nothing can gain momentum, unless there is an impetus behind it. And honestly, haven't you seen clips of the model landing in water? How did you expect them to land back on earth? Just smack right into it?

[Twilight]

Once again you bring up accuracy of radiometric dating. I am sorry that it took me so long to come up with a suitable resoponce on the issue. These are all quotes from non-chrisitian scientists who see serious problems with the methods. To make it easyer, I am even giving referances in case you want to look it up.

The dating of geologic ages and events in terms of years rather than stage of evolution depends on a handful of radiometric techniques--especially the decay of uranium into lead. Also of importance are the potassium/argon method, the rubidium/strontium method, the fission-track method and a few others of less importance. These are widely trumpeted as proving the billion-year order of magnitude age of the earth and of the evolutionary process.

Not so widely known, however, are the many untestable assumptions in these methods (e.g., isolated system, constant decay rate, initial conditions) as well as the fact that most such measurements give inconsistent results and are never published. The bottom line is that no radiometrically determined date obtained by these methods is valid. Simply by changing the assumptions, all actual radiometric dates can be brought down to essentially zero.

Boyle, R. W., "Some Geochemical Considerations on Lead Isotope Dating of Lead Deposits," Economic Geology, vol. 54, no. 1 (January/February 1959), pp. 130-135.

"The ratio of the lead isotopes in deposits deriving their lead from such rocks [i.e., Precambrian granites] is, therefore, neither a measure of the age of the deposits nor the age of the sedimentary host rocks but is rather a function of the complex geochemical processes through which the lead may have passed." p. 133

"From these examples it is readily apparent that the amount of accumulated radiogenic lead contributed to a deposit is the deciding factor in age determinations and must be known before any age can be assigned to a deposit." p. 135

Brooks, C., D. E. James, and S. R. Hart, "Ancient Lithosphere: Its Role in Young Continental Volcanism," Science, vol. 193 (September 17, 1976), pp. 1086-1094.

"One serious consequence of the mantle isochron model is that crystallization ages determined on basic igneous rocks by the Rb-Sr whole-rock technique can be greater than the true age by many hundreds of millions of years. This problem of inherited age is more serious for younger rocks, and there are well-documented instances of conflicts between stratigraphic age and Rb-Sr in the literature." p. 1093

Catanzaro, E. J., and J. L. Kulp, "Discordant Zircons from the Little Belt (Montana), Beartooth (Montana) and Santa Catalina (Arizona) Mountains," Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, vol. 28 (January 1964), pp. 87-124.

"The common occurrence of discordant results in isotopic geochronometry presents an intriguing and complicated problem. It has become obvious that many mineral samples used in age determinations have not been closed systems throughout their histories. The interpretation of isotopic ages ultimately requires knowledge of the processes which can cause alteration of the isotopic ratios." p. 87

Engels, Joan C., "Effects of Sample Purity on Discordant Mineral Ages Found in K-Ar Dating," Journal of Geology, vol. 79 (September 1971), pp. 609-616.

"It is now well known that K-Ar ages obtained from different minerals in a single rock may be strikingly discordant." p. 609

"Discordances between mineral K-Ar ages in a single rock sample are common, and if these minerals are mutual contaminants, purity levels must be carefully established in order to avoid mixed, meaningless ages." p. 615


Faure, G., and J. L. Powell, Strontium Isotope Geology (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1972).

"It is readily apparent that these rocks [i.e., the Pahrump diabase from the Panamint Mountains in California] scatter widely on the isochron diagram. Dates ranging from 1.09 to 34 billion years could be calculated for individual specimens. Dates in excess of the age of the earth (4.6 x 109 years) are obviously not acceptable. A possible explanation for the scatter of points on the isochron diagram is that these rocks may have been variously enriched in radiogenic 87Sr which might have been derived from the adjacent granite and gneiss during Mesozoic metamorphism. These results indicate that even total-rock systems may be open during metamorphism and may have their isotopic systems changed, making it impossible to determine their geologic age." p. 102

"All of the above conclusions regarding the suitability for dating of rocks and minerals apply only when the rocks or their minerals have not been altered by chemical weathering at or near the surface of the Earth. Because most rocks that are used for dating are usually collected from outcrops, the effects of chemical weathering on the 87Rb-87Sr decay scheme may be important." p. 102

Gentry, Robert V., et al., "Radiohalos in Coalified Wood: New Evidence Relating to the Time of Uranium Introduction and Coalification," Science, vol. 194 (October 15, 1976), pp. 315-318.

"Abstract. The discovery of embryonic halos around uranium-rich sites that exhibit very high 238U/206Pb ratios suggests that uranium introduction may have occurred far more recently than previously supposed. The discovery of 210PO Halos derived from uranium daughters, some elliptical in shape, further suggests that uranium-daughter infiltration occurred prior to coalification when the radionuclide transport rate was relatively high and the matrix still plastically deformable." p. 315

"Such extraordinary values admit the possibility that both the initial U infiltration and coalification could possibly have occurred with the past several thousand years." pp. 316-317

"Since it seems clear that the U radiocenters formed during the initial introduction of U and if this were as long ago as the Triassic or Jurassic are generally thought to be, then there should be evident not only fully developed, but overexposed U halos as well." p. 317

"If remobilization is not the explanation, then these ratios raise some crucial questions about the validity of present concepts regarding the antiquity of these geological formations and about the time required for coalification." p. 317

Hayatsu, A., "K-Ar Isochron Age of the North Mountain Basalt, Nova Scotia," Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, vol. 16 (April 1979), pp. 973-975.

"In conventional interpretation of K-Ar age data, it is common to discard ages which are substantially too high or too low compared with the rest of the group or with other available data such as the geological time scale. The discrepancies between the rejected and the accepted are arbitrarily attributed to excess or loss of argon." p. 974

Jueneman, Frederic B., "Secular Catastrophism," Industrial Research and Development (June 1982)

"The age of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years, based on radiodecay rates of uranium and thorium. Such 'confirmation' may be short-lived, as nature is not to be discovered quite so easily. There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radiodecay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago but, rather, within the age and memory of man.

"The mechanism for resetting such nuclear clocks is not clear, but knowledge has never really stood in our way in the quest for ignorance. Meanwhile, such prehistoric 'creatures' as Nessie from Loch Ness or Champ from Lake Champlain, as well as others, may not be avatars at all, but survivors from the last catastrophe.

"Even as we." p. 21

Macdougall, J. D., "Fission-Track Dating," Scientific American, vol. 235 (December 1976), pp.

114-122. Macdougall was Associate Professor of Geological Research, Scripps Institute, UCSD.

"Uranium 238 is the only significant producer of tracks in terrestrial rocks and in natural and man-made glasses." p. 115

"The fourth assumption presupposes that the concentration of uranium in any specimen has remained constant over the specimen's lifetime. A combination of elevated temperatures and ground-water percolation can leach away a proportion of the uranium present in rock crystals. The mobility of the uranium is such that as one part of a rock formation is being impoverished another part can become abnormally enriched. Such changes can also take place at relatively low temperatures." p. 118



Stansfield, William D., The Science of Evolution (New York: Macmillan, 1977), 614 pp. Stansfield was at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"Several methods have been devised for estimating the age of the earth and its layers of rocks. These methods rely heavily on the assumption of uniformitarianism, i.e., natural processes have proceeded at relatively constant rates throughout the earth's history." p. 80

"It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological 'clock.'" p. 84

[Khadrane]

Firstly, in the vacuum of space, nothing can gain momentum, unless there is an impetus behind it. And honestly, haven't you seen clips of the model landing in water? How did you expect them to land back on earth? Just smack right into it?

Maybe I should rephrase. The moon runs into the dust. Everyone knows the moon moves. (I hope. ) The dust piles up on the moon. The dust doesn't have to move.

[Rána Eressëa]

You want to see everything wrong with the bible? Go to The Skeptic's Annotated Bible.

[Ñólendil]

That's a rather dangerous thing to say and likely to make people upset. I'd be more mild in the future, flame wars begin like this.

[Khadrane]

God declared his creation to be "very good" in 1:31, but I can't find anything good in Genesis.

Creation was good when God created it. What made all that bad stuff happen was man's sin. It was our fault.

3:22 God expels Adam and Eve from the garden before they get a chance to eat from that other tree -- the tree of life. God knows that if they do that, they well become "like one of us" and live forever. A spooky thought indeed for an insecure god. Notice that God refers to himself (themselves?) in the first person plural, suggesting, contrary to many other Bible verses, that there are several gods.

Umm... I believe God was referring to Jesus and the Holy Spirit as part of the "we." You know, the Trinity. God in three persons. One God, three parts.

4:17 "And Cain knew his wife." That's nice, but where the hell did she come from? The Bible doesn't mention any of Cain's sisters. Well, maybe he married his mom, or maybe God pulled another creation over in the next county. In any case, Cain and the mysterious Mrs. Cain have a son (another blue cigar!). His name is Enoch and he builds a city (population 3).

It says in Genesis that Adam had other sons and daughters. That sounds gross, but there wasn't all the genetic mutations there are nowadays, so it wasn't a problem.

That's all I feel like explaining now.

[Rána Eressëa]

Originally posted by Ñólendil
That's a rather dangerous thing to say and likely to make people upset. I'd be more mild in the future, flame wars begin like this.

Sorry, there. Don't want to start anything that big (edited it just in case). But, hey, it does have to do with my utter disbelief.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Rogue Elf


Sorry, there. Don't want to start anything that big. But, hey, it does have to do with my utter disbelief.

... Being the anti-theist thread... Okay, so let me get this straight, the theists (not naming names, here) can call people childish names, but we can't say anything about our profound dis-belief in the bible? Oh the hypocrasy!

[Twilight]

I read over a good part of it. I found it rather offensive, and full of holes all over the place. Just reading over the inconsistancy section. I will cover just a few, more can be provieded as needed. First of all the supposed inconsistancy with the light. Light was created first. It doesn't say where this light came from. God can create light out of nowhere if he wants to. maybe that was him jsut creating all of the components, all jumbled together. Then he later sepparates them out, and a few days later forms them into sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies. A good part of the other things are assuming evolution, which still hasn't been proved yet. One theory on the firmament is that there was a layer of water in the atmosphere which was later lost as it fell during the flood. The flood also acounts for a lot of geological formations. I can provide more on that if anybody wants.

[Rána Eressëa]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
... Being the anti-theist thread... Okay, so let me get this straight, the theists (not naming names, here) can call people childish names, but we can't say anything about our profound dis-belief in the bible? Oh the hypocrasy!

My disbelief is almost solely based on everything in the bible that is wrong: injustices, absurdities, and cruelty. I guess challenging Christians on the very book they follow is also just a "bad thing". I honestly do not find whoever wrote the bible worthy of my belief, and I have argued many times that man wrote the bible.

[Khadrane]

... Being the anti-theist thread... Okay, so let me get this straight, the theists (not naming names, here) can call people childish names, but we can't say anything about our profound dis-belief in the bible? Oh the hypocrasy!

I've tried not to call people names, but if I (accidently) do, I apologize in advance. And the anti-theist people can say what you want to say. (Really )

And Twilight, do talk more about the flood!

[Twilight]

Yes, humans did write the Bible, but what they wrote is all divinely inspired. Yes, certain things do seem cruel, but look at the justuice behind it as well.

[Rána Eressëa]

Originally posted by Twilight
Yes, humans did write the Bible, but what they wrote is all divinely inspired. Yes, certain things do seem cruel, but look at the justuice behind it as well.

Lot refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two "virgin daughters" instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" in 2 Pet. 2:7-8

Where's the justice in giving your two virgin daughters to a band of robbers to do what they want with them?