Creation vs. Evolution

[SeaYoda]

I'm quite enjoying the civility of this conversation - says a lot about SB folks .

 

[Diver Dennis]

Me too. When it first started, I was a bit worried...

 

[SeaYoda]

Me too. When it first started, I was a bit worried...

Some religious people want to take away the choice that God gives us. Some scientists don't keep all options open and condemn those who do. There have been drifts toward either side in this thread but it has done very well at staying a worthwhile read.

 

[jiveturkey]

How about a mummy? Several of those around that are naturally formed. Do they count as a fossil or do they need to be in rock?

No, I mean rocks. If we buried something in the right conditions, how many thousands or millions of years would it take to become a fossil or a rock for that matter.

 

[SeaYoda]

No, I mean rocks. If we buried something in the right conditions, how many thousands or millions of years would it take to become a fossil or a rock for that matter.

Ah - no idea how long. Maybe somebody else has studied that - it would be interesting to know.

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

Ah - no idea how long. Maybe somebody else has studied that - it would be interesting to know.

Can I just say I'm impressed how civil this has been. I am sure that not one creationist will be swayed by the scientists, and ditto the scientists arn't going to be swayed by the creationists. Still - interesting to chat.

To the question at hand:

It depends on the depositional environment - to produce a fossil you need the bone fragments to be deposited preferably in a reduced (low-oxygen), low-energy environment such as the bottom of a lake and buried by fine-grained muds or sands relatively rapidly (otherwise the bones degrade on the surface). Pressure compacts the surrounding sediments, producing a cast of the bone which is eventually dissolved away by groundwater. The cast is infilled by silicates and carbonates deposited by groundwater and volia: a fossil.

In most environments you are looking at 10'000's to more likely 100'000's of years minimum for the process of burial, replacement and uplift back to the surface. I haven't heard of fossils younger than that. It may occur in unusual geological environments but you would need rapid burial, lots of deposition, rapid hardening of the sediments into rock, rapid flux of groundwater, then, after fossilisation, rapid uplift and erosion of the rock unit back to the surface.

Remains that are still made out of their original material (mummies, Neolithic bone fragments, mammoths preserved in ice) are not fossils but 'preserved remains'. In most areas I’ve worked stone age bone-fragments, charcoal and artefacts from 5000-10000 years ago are unfossilised and still very much on the surface or only covered by very shallow dirt.

Cheers,
Rohan.

 

[wreckchick]

Another quick note... fossils are not themselves carbon dated. To carbon date one needs organic materials and as Rohan has just pointed out, fossils are no longer organic but have turned to stone casts of the former bone. I'm sure I'll be corrected on this if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that many fossil remains are dated based on their place in the stratigraphy of the land not on direct testing of the fossils themselves.

Rachel

 

[Mako Mark]

I believe that they can also be dated by potassium/thorium(?) dating, which is pretty much the same technique as carbon dating but is based on elements that have far slower half-lives

 

[MikeFerrara]

Personally I dislike the idea of walking around trying to "earn points" for the afterlife rather than considering the morality of decisions/actions/choices and acting from your (perhaps godgiven) sense of right and wrong...I think karma too is a bit too "selfish". I think you should do "the right thing" because it´s right not for some "future reward" or to avoid punishment...

That's not how it works...at least in the Bible.

We can never measure up to Gods standard. We can't earn our way into heaven.
Isaiah 64:6 "But we are like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.

Proverbs 20:9 "Who can say, "I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin"?"

Ecclesiastes 7:20 "For there is not a just man on the earth who does good and does not sin."

Ephesians 2 "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespass and sins 2 in which you once walked accourding to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 amoung whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others."

It's not a matter of being rewarded for any little good that we might manage to do. Our best is as filthy rags to God and of no use to him. It's a matter of already having been convited of our sin and having no way out on our own. Being already dead, there isn't anything that we can do. Dead people just can't do anything.

How then?

Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast."

Faith in what or who?
If we've done so bad doesn't it have to be paid for somehow?
If we are dead in sin, how do we get made alive?
That's the rest of the story but I'm tired of typing and I need to make some coffee. If anyone would like me to go on later I'll be happy to.

 

[photohikedive]

bah, a true authority on religion is now among you. kneel before the master of the Force, for Yoda knows all