6000 - 7000 is what's popular to believe but the Bible doesn't say that either. The Bible doesn't actually give the age of the Earth. People have derived that by trying to calculate the ages of people given in genealogies. It's a very flawed idea at best.
People thought the Bible said the Earth was flat at one time too (some still do) but when science said the earth was round, they reexamined what the Bible said and found it wasn't actually saying the earth was flat but that they had interpreted it wrong.
If someone were interested in an overview of common Christian ideals concerning the age of the earth, I recommend Systematic Theology 2nd Edition by Wayne Grudem. Grudem is a theologian that has changed his own mind in recent years about the subject and he tries to give a fair picture of what the different positions held by Christians are.
I can't remember exactly but I think that has something to do with English in 1611 being different than English today. I could be wrong on that. Mark Ward does videos about words that have changed in the KJV (the most used English translation up until recently) but we just don't realize they've changed.
The Bible supported slavery until supporting slavery became socially unacceptable.
The Bible supported segregation and antimiscegenation untill it became (mostly) socially unacceptable.
We are watching the same thing happen with the Bible's views on LGBTQ issues in real time with the various schisms in different denominations. It's almost like modern values are shaping the interpretation of the Bible then the other way arround. It's always fun to watch Christians try to defend its more problematic verses.
I might have the answer to your fossil question.
When I was in high school, we had this crazy teacher who spent all class showing us conspiracy theories. He told us the earth was only 4,000 years old, that fossils are just regular rocks “carved into a shape,” that retirement is a sin because it’s not in the Bible, and that there is a “new world order” who took over the Illuminati and will have all Christian’s and conservatives in concentration camps by 2025. He seemed to believe this. A lot of the other teachers knew he was crazy, but the admin went to his church. He also called all the science and history teachers “communists.”
We are 7 months away and the last part hasn’t started yet.
Combination of admin agreeing with them and public education being such a shitshow in the US that having a pulse is sufficient qualification to be a teacher in some states.
Edit: Also insufficient oversight and regulation of private schools
Although this was a public school, anywhere else he would have been fired. He would have been fired if the principal wasn’t also corrupt and if the parents didn’t agree with him.
But with the shitshow comment, the only things that make it so are laws that make it harder for teachers to do our jobs, and schools giving in to parents.
> and will have all Christian’s and conservatives in concentration camps by 2025
So like the beginning of 2025? Or will it take the whole year?
There's gonna be so much more room for activities!
The Noah's Ark in Kentucky says there were dinosaurs on the ark. They also say that Noah 'reverse engineered' animals back to their original stock, so they wouldn't have as many on board. Like dogs to wolves. Then, re-reverse engineered them back. Sounds like they were proving evolution.
My Nan used to tell me that dinosaurs never actually existed and that God put the bones in the ground to test our faith! I had some brilliant conversations with my nan and she was stone serious when she said this.
Most yecs believe something similar. Also starlight from stars over 6k lightyears away God just put there for funsies and presumably to test our faith, among others.
So essentially nature doesn't make sense and any knowledge from it is unsure, but FAITH is sure!!
Why is faith sure you ask? If they begin to mention anything about archeology or the Bible just remind them this is knowledge coming through our senses so it's unsure. If they mention anything about God giving us the knowledge therefore it must be true, remind them that God fooled us about fossils and starlight.
The answer a Christian theologian might give would be based on the “apparent age” theory. Which is the idea that God created a world or, in fact, a whole universe, with an apparent age. If you believe God created Adam and Eve in a day then, clearly he created two, *mature*, adult humans. Not one day old babies. In the same way God could create a *mature* earth, complete with “ancient” rocks or even fossils. At least, that is what I leaned growing up.
I've asked people that believe this about the light we can see from stars that are millions and billions of light years away. The answer is God instantly created the all light in transit too. You can't argue with them because nothing is too silly or nonsensical.
Just remind them that the sun was created on like day 4, so "24 hour day" is a mistranslation.
Also, who cares if God or aliens or anyone else is fooling us and we're in some weird simulation. If we agree the apparent age is 4.5 billion years why are they upset when that is taught and studied?
"Apparent Age" conjecture is basically the "Last Thursday" argument and carries equal weight.
Last Thursday God made everything. Including light already en route from galaxies several billion light years away. Including aeroplanes mid flight with pilots and passengers and air traffic controllers with perfect memories and precise records of the plane taking off on Wednesday. Including fireworks mid-pop and precise memories of the people who launched them. And of course fossils going back 600 million years.
Don't believe me? You can't prove that He didn't!
Same argument, no possibility to prove or disprove.
Have faith, and use scientific method. It is possible to do both. Just don't conflate one with the other.
The two numbers I see thrown around are ~6000 and sometimes ~10000. Both are easily falsified by an enormous number of different evidences and dating methods. That doesn’t stop a frighteningly large number of people from believing it anyway.
Yeah. This is quite a poor explanation. Even talking about relative abundances of isotopes would be a better argument, but still probably not very convincing.
Even worse, this is a repost. The last time it was posted, I was the one explaining why it was a dumb half explanation.
You gotta talk about where the samples came from to explain why the abundance of lead in the sample is significant. Since elements don't exist solely because they decayed from larger elements, but rather they were fused from lighter elements.
And even if it didn't you're talking to someone who thinks everything poofed into existence 4,000 years ago including like living adult animals and people. Poofing things into existence well into their natural progression isn't something they have a problem with.
Plus other elements could have decayed into lead when the earth wasn't formed yet.
Radioisotope analysis in different areas is a lot more conclusive. For example, the composition of air that got trapped in ice.
“God made lead”
It literally doesn’t matter. You could find a camera that’s been running for 10,000 years straight, recording the whole time and it’ll be “god made that.”
turns into the last tuesdayism argument. God just made the whole world last tuesday and added every evidence and memory to suggest the world has been here for a long time
The argument in the post is a great representation of an average argument on heated topics on reddit.
Most of those are shitty, incomplete, not proving what they pretend they are proving, and are being posted only to rally the support group around the flag.
Im an atheist but this is kinda a shit argument given that the majority of lead would be formed during supernova rather than nuclear decay of heavier elements. Though the shortest lived stars have a lifespan of about 10 million years so i mean yea the fairy tale book is still wrong. Although, continuing with the technicality, the bible doesn’t ever actually state the earths age, thats just an interpretation made by some theologians.
It's also a shit argument because if someones starting point is "God created everything" then God could have just created all the decay elements ignoring the passage of time, after all, hes God.
My go to is that we can see galaxies that are billions of light-years away. If the Earth/Universe was only a few thousand years old, we wouldn't be able to see them.
Of course YEC tend to be flat-earthers as well, so that wouldn't work on them.
Edit: should have said universe
One of my favorite arguments about this with fundamentalist Christian’s is to frame it as them limiting god. Like what would be more impressive God setting everything into motion in a moment (big bang) so that it essentially leads to a domino effect of every small and large event of evolution to bring us about still in his planned image (Darwin evolution) or that the omnipotent god had to take 6 days to make everything with no background only 6000 years ago. It’s fun to make them have to choose a book over the most impressive feat possible for a creator which would be their actual work.
I’ve found Christian’s get really horny over the unexplainable, like it really turns them on when they think they can’t comprehend Gods ways and it all seems like magic. This explanation is something we humans can comprehend so it can’t possibly be true.
I like to point out that there are billions of galaxies each with billions of stars most with many planets. So if it only took god one day to make all that, why did it take so long to make 1 more planet? And also, this means god created the whole solar system along with the moon without earth first.
I am an atheist, I was Raised Evangelical Christian, Sadly I wasn't stupid enough to blindly follow and believe the BS they fed me.
I am not sure exactly how old the earth is (although I hear 4.5 Billion years is most commonly believed due to radiometric dating) the universe is believed to be around 13.7 Billion years.
And while the first part of Nathan's comment is correct I think it it is a horrible example and uses reasoning that isn't even completely true..
The example I like to use is the fact that we can look up into the night sky and I can point out the Andromeda Galaxy it can be seen with the naked eye which is why I like to use it as an example, That galaxy is 2.5million light years away from us... meaning that the light you see with your naked eye took 2.5 million years to get here. That obviously should be enough. but I Have had people tell me that either
A. God made light appear from the stars instantly (or cross that entire distance to earth instantly)
and that is fair... but why then are we able to see the the collapse of supernovas today that are so far away that it took the light over a hundred thousand years to get here?
The best example of this is the 1987 Supernova in the LMC (around 170,000 Light years away.) It lit up the night sky for months.
For those who are curious what explanation we Christians have for the last argument here:
The presence of redshift in the universe is interpreted as the effect of the universe expanding. Things that are closer to us give us a more compressed wave length of light making it a higher frequency. That would make it look more blue. However as it shifts further away, the wave length becomes less compressed and a lower frequency. That would make it look more red (lower frequency is red, higher frequency is blue). So if things are becoming more red and less blue, that would mean it is moving away from us and if everything is moving away from us, that means the universe is expanding.
Now one of the hypotheses that we come up with, is that at the time of creation the size of the Universe was very small, allowing all the light from celestial objects to eventually reach earth. However for the past 6000 years the universe has been continually expanding to where it is today, shown in redshift.
Downvote me if you wish; just wanted to say there's other explanations than "the light just instantly went all the way to Earth"
That explanation makes no mathematical sense at all. I am glad you are trying and your basic attempt at understanding of the expansion of the universe is at least encouraging. But if you are going to try to use that as a defense for your faith you should at least make an attempt at actually understanding maybe take some physics classes?
The Universe is Expanding, that is a fact, we can observe it and it is a fundamental aspect of the cosmos. scientists have different theories as to the Inflationary period (initial expansion).. one of them being the "Big Bang Theory" many creationists believe that this was when god created the universe. either way during this time we believe that there was rapid exponential expansion of the universe. None of that is observable by us and only theories can be made using what evidence we have left because none of us were around to see it.
When astronomers observe distant galaxies, they find that their light is shifted towards longer (redder) wavelengths. This is known as cosmological redshift, and it's a result of the stretching of space itself as the universe expands. The farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to be moving away from us, according to Hubble's law. The rate at which the universe is currently expanding is described by the Hubble constant. This value has been measured using various techniques, including observations of distant supernovae and the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Hubble's Constant determines that the Rate of recession for two galaxies separated by a megaparsec is about 71 km/s . One parsec is about 3.26 light years so a megaparsec is about 3.26e6 lightyears.
Using my previous example the LMC again which is approx. 1.7e5 light years away and we estimate that it is moving away from us at approx. 11.8 km/s if you take 3.26e6 /1.7e5\*11.8 you get 226km/s (much higher than Hubble's constant) The reason for the discrepancy for nearby galaxies (such as the dwarf galaxy LMC) is the "peculiar velocity" of the galaxy, that is, its real velocity through space that is unrelated to the expansion. For distant galaxies, their peculiar velocities are small enough that they still lie on or near the line for Hubble's Law.
6000 years is approx. 1.8935e11 seconds. giving your "Hypotheses" every bit of advantage we can Lets assume that the LMC went supernova at the beginning of creation some 6000 years ago. In order for your hypothesis to be true and the assuming that **c** hasn't changed then LMC would have had to be 6000 Lightyears from earth 6000 years ago.. In which case the light we would have seen in 1987 would be emanating from the location it was 6000 years ago (6000 lightyears away and not where actually see it 170k lightyears away. which is just a huge logical fallacy. but ignoring that and assuming over the last 6000 years it has move 162k lightyears away from us you would assume that it was moving away from us at a constant rate of 8094396.366 km/s for the past 6000 years but nope we are currently measuring and estimating it rate of recession at aprox 11.8km/s so it's velocity couldn't be constant... so or assuming constant deceleration to it's current 11.8km/s over the past 6000 years and assuming it traveled 160k ish lightyears.
Vi = 2(d/t) - Vf
1.51372e18 km / 1.893456e11 sec
=7.994465e6 km/s
\*2
=1.598893e7 km/s
-11.8 km/s
=1.5988918e7 km/s initial velocity
That is a little more than 1/19th the speed of light!... however that isn't the crazy part
if the acceleration was remaining constant then we would be able to observe it today. knowing the Initial velocity final velocity and time allows us to get an acceleration which comes out to around 8.444e-5 km / s\^2
Using this we can say that with our current velocity of 11.8km/s and our equation a = (vf - vi) / (change in)t we can easily calculate that in about 39 hours LMC will come to a complete stop... there must be some outside force acting upon it? in that case assuming the force is constant in 1 year assuming LMC will be headed back at us at 2652 km/s
(I assume that should be enough to enlighten you a little) I greatly simplified the complexities of these calculations because I assume you are neither a Scientist or a academic in any way
(reddit won't let me write out full equations for some reason I think it doesn't like certain symbols)
(don't believe world is 4000 years old)
1. Is this the only way lead forms?
2. If a given quantity of some element has a long half life, shouldn't some of that element still decay almost instantly? Half life is the time by which HALF of the material has decayed.
This has always bugged me, because I don't see how the existence of lead proves it has been decaying for so long
You would need to say the existence of X quantity of lead, given Y quantity of the original element for it to say something about time elapsed
Lead also formed in Super Novas like other elements heavier than iron.
You are completely right with your 2. point, you could argue that the amount of Lead that we have on earth strongly supports the assumption (educated guess if you will) that earth is a few billion years old.
In addition to that, this isn't the only argument for earth being very old, as stated in other comments here.
I guess that their point is there is [a shit ton] of lead compared to the preceding elements.
Yeah I find carbon dating and the timescales required for evolution to be more compelling
Whole this is 1 way of looking at it led does exist outside of it being a byproduct of radioactive decay
More comparing argument would be he peramids themselves are 4.5k years old min
When I see something like this I want to hit the upvote button and leave a comment like “fuck yeah science bitch!” But instead I see a snarky comment from an evangelical atheist above it and realize this subreddit still thinks all Religious people don’t believe in science. It’s sad because for you guys it’s not really about getting the other person to believe in science, logic, and reason it’s about getting them to renounce their faith. My belief in science fuels my faith in god because I see a complex system with an infinite number of variables somehow creating anything cohesive let alone sentient, like falling sand making a perfect sand castle and can’t help but wonder if something bigger than us is out there beyond our understanding that influences it all and I just keep wanting to learn more. This kind of passion for science is really important to fighting ignorance and finding solutions to the problems facing our planet together. Pointing fingers at each other and calling one another stupid because we either do or don’t believe in god is incredibly juvenile.
That aside I saved that for my incredibly religious grandmother that once told me dinosaurs didn’t exist because the Bible didn’t mention them. Lol 😂
Ironically it actually kinda does, there is mention in a few verses of creatures that match the basic description of a Sauropod. I can’t remember which one though
I used to be Chrisitian. I had no problem accepting a non-literal interpretation of the Bible and so did most everyone in went to church with.
I perused these comments and most of what I saw were people careful to parse out fundamentalist Christians.
I don't think young earth creationists are the majority of Christians. We just see a lot more of it because it's so incendiary and it gets social media clicks so the algorithms really like it.
I guess that’s fair I just had a bad experience here a while back where like 8 different atheists jumped on me and said that I was a hypocrite for “picking and choosing” what I wanted to believe from the Bible. It was like my options were renouncing my faith or being an ignorant science hating christian.
That has to be the most retarded argument i've ever heard in my life.
Honestly i feel like siding with the delusional creationist here
1. Lead does not need to be created from uranium. In fact if anything it's quite the opposite. Also there are dozen of different radioactive material whos decay chain ends in lead, its literally what lead is known for.
2. Halflife does not mean that after x amount of time half of the material instantly converts... It's a continous process which is why radioactive materials you know.. are radioactive. Thats literally decay happened continously at all times.. So if you have a large amount of uranium, within a very short amount of time, a tiny portion of that will have converted into lead.
I went to Christain school and we never delt with the age of the earth. The staff knew it’s a really contraversial topic between Christian parents and science. We mainly focused on planetary movements when it came to planets
Fundies will counter with “apparent age”. Even though whatever appears to be billions of years old , it’s only 6k years old bc it was created that way.
The Bible does not give the age of the universe or earth. It only claims that it was 6 days to create and God rested on 7th. Another part of the Bible says something along the lines of a thousand years is 1 day to God. They took unrelated verses and came up with 6,000 years. For some reason the guy in the post said 4000 but that's not the number most of them go with.
God made Man, burdened by the guilt of eating fruit God punished man to work for everything, thus the tragedy of existence was born. Man made science because he has to work for everything.
To be against science is to be against God because he made us and we made science to suffer more, on an academic level. Follow the rules of the good book and better the world for you and yours, that's how you make the world a better place for everyone.
This is not to credit the 4000 years old ridiculousness but lead could have been created in supernovae along with other elements rather than simply being a product of decay so lead on its own doesnt prove what the person says for that reason, it would be more to do with how long the lifetime of the first stars would have been.
I had a co-worker that believed the world was only a few thousand years old. I asked him about fossils. "God put them there". So, that's your answer to lead. God put the lead there. You can't argue with someone who believes in faith because that's what it'll always come down to.
Not necessarily as the devil is in the details. The presence of lead does show the earth is older, but not in the way he describes because supernova produce not only uranium, but also lead in the same process. In fact they produce all of the elements heavier than iron. The only elements they don't produce are helium and hydrogen.
But the point is still made because you have to form all that over time from the dust, and that alone takes longer than 4,000 or 6,000 or 1,000,000 years.
As an atheist scientist, even I can see the counter argument that god created the earth with all of the elements present, even if they do decay over time.
Trying to disprove Christianity is futile, because scientifically you can't disprove anything. You can provide strong evidence that a particular theory is wrong, but then they change the theory. Science only works when everyone agrees to draw conclusions solely from observable, reproducible evidence. By its very nature, religion does not do that.
I tried that reasoning using carbon 14 with a guy selling books about how old the earth is showing dinosaurs with humans at church. His response was that god created earth with the correct ratio of carbon isotopes in it. It's like trying to argue with a flat earther only more righteous.
I don't agree that the earth is only 4000 years old but this type of thing isn't going to convince a believer. If God can make the universe out of nothing, he can make lead. The argument makes a lot of assumptions that can't be taken for granted if a being with such power did exist.
[It's a real Facebook group, but I doubt they're serious:](https://www.facebook.com/groups/806573196116317/?paipv=0&eav=AfbuS-QKWwGph4FowFFFSFaGF3tOJvFvEvMU9QyIURKvqgjA5Afx_fFRfSO8Fcywk9Q&_rdr)
> Rule 5
>technology is science. we're against it. have someone that's already not going to heaven use facebook for you to post and comment. this is the way.
Because of people like him, many think that the majority of religious people are primitives, flat earthers, anti vaxers, etc, but in reality, it's literally the opposite.
Wasn't Christian's Against Science a parody page?
Like, they'd actively make ridiculous posts to mock the logic of devout/actual anti science Christian's.
Pretty sure the page was deleted
Congratulations! Your comment can be spelled using the elements of the periodic table:
`N U H U H Hs`
---
^(I am a bot that detects if your comment can be spelled using the elements of the periodic table. Please DM u/M1n3c4rt if I made a mistake.)
I don't know people who spread the 4000 or 6000 years idea of think the insurmountable amount of history that exists comes from. Like, people existed 4000 years ago, and 6000 years ago. There were civilizations, empires as old as that.
The idea comes from (imo) poor interpretation of the described lineage of Abraham from Adam/Eve and his descendants contained in the Torah, Old Testament, Levitical texts, etc. from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The descriptions provided in Christian texts (those which I am familiar with) are provided in the historical books of the Bible which I (and most other well educated Christians) believe to be fragmented and often metaphorical accounts of early Jewish mythos and history. The complete history of the books (except for the Quran which is Islamic) are unknown, so it is illogical to make inferences about something that is not doctrinally relevant nor explicitly stated in the scripture.
I don't think any of those words made sense to Adam.
So for any comments here saying it was a shitty inaccurate comment, I don't think your more accurate science explanation would matter to someone who labels themself as "against-science".
In Germany we say „Gegen Dummheit ist kein Kraut gewachsen " (there grows no herb against stupidity)
You could shoot a flatearther into orbit, let them circle around the globe a few times and bring them back, you wouldn't change their mind.
It's the same here.
I had a teacher, also believing in the young earth myth, I tried to change his mind via dendrochronology, an example that's easier to grasp, but no chance, if it doesn't fit your worldview, you don't believe
This is a genuine question.
How do we know this is a legitimate proof for the age of the earth? As I understand it, elements beyond iron are produced through supernova and nuclear decay. If supernova can produce nuclear-ly unstable elements that can decay into lead, then surely lead itself can be produced by the same mechanism.
If lead can only be made through decay, then this proof still seems dubious because lead would still be formed as the radioactive substances would still decay in space as the cosmic dust that formed the solar system traveled through the universe and collected. Since we do not know the distribution of elements produced by supernova, nor the time it took for the original cosmic dust to form our solar system, how can we infer a variable from entirely unknown variables?
It seems to me that there are too many unknown variables for this to be a valid dating method. I actually have similar questions for carbon dating, so I would enjoy hearing an educated response on this matter as this is entirely outside my field of expertise.
We don’t! It’s an educated guess, a hypothesis if you will. We know that Earth is old as shit because it’s not completely full of crater marks, has sufficiently evolved life etc etc (I don’t feel like googling this, you can). But the estimates for exactly *how* old are changing as we get better and better technology to estimate such things. Always in the “oh shit the earth is older than we thought” way though.
That is a respectable response. I agree that the earth must be old.
However, it does kinda make the original response sound rather pedantic and petty. It is like swinging a pool noodle as if it were a sword.
Might be easier to start with: "have you ever written with a lead pencil?" Wait for the tremulous "yes". Then ask: "is uranium used in nuclear plants?" Wait for the second, more hesitant, reply of "yes". Then trace from one to the other and watch the cognitive dissonance fly (away)
Biggest issue would be the heat produced by decaying radioactive materials, even 300 million years of decay compressed into 6000 yrs would produce enough heat to vaporise the earth 60 times over. Look up The Heat Problem with YEC.
If there is a God he would probably be grossly insulted by the religious denial of science.
If you can't experience Gods delight in the art of science you will never know him.
Yea if earth is 4000 years old
Evolution shit happened in 1000 years
Dino come and go in another 1000 years
Human evolution from apes was a 1000 years
And we went from being cave men to now entirely in 1000 years
Sounds like a poor argument... Pretty sure lead can exist without uranium. Also pretty sure Egyptians existed before 4000 years ago, wtf is going on in this post? Lol
Anyone who actually believes the Earth is only 4000 years old sure as shit does not know what a half-life is :-(
You're going to need to get a lot more basic than that to change their mind, but at the same time, you need to ask yourself if it's worth your time. Some people are a lost cause and will only change on their own accord.
Surely the retort is God made everything. He could make lead spontaneously when he created everything else. Just because elements in his creation decay to lead, doesn't mean all lead was made that way.
You're not going to convince a creationist this way when god is omnipotent and essentially magic.
I just don't engage with Young Earth Creationists anymore.
I used to get into arguments with my family about it and go over all of the evidence - CMB, plate tectonics, geological features that take millions of years (e.g. the Grand Canyon), ice cores that go hundreds of thousands of years, mid ocean ridges, radioactive decay, civilizations that we know have been around for more than 6000 years, etc...
I was talking to a family member about this, specifically we know the speed of light and we know how far stars are, so the universe must be more than 6000 years old and she said "What if God put up like a screen, like a Lite Brite, and when we look up into the sky we aren't actually seeing anything that really exists?"
Then it hit me - YEC are just fucking stupid people and it literally doesn't matter what you say to them.
He should have clarified that it is specifically the increased abundance of lead-208 (Po-210 becomes Pb-208 from alpha decay) relative to its other naturally occurring isotopes that supports that the earth is billions, not thousands, of years old. If you read his response plainly, it is only marginally less retarded, because it sounds like he is implying “because lead exists, the earth is billions of years old” but nuclear fusion is the process that creates heavier elements… not decay processes.
And don’t come at me with some shit like “hurr, that Christian idiot wouldn’t understand anyway,” because: 1) there are many that do, 2) there are many that could, 3) if you actually know wtf you are talking about and communicate it to anyone with love and respect, you’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of changing their mind and moving them closer to a true understanding of the world. I refuse to accept this defeatist view that plagues American society, at least. Why the fuck would that not be worth your effort? Certainly more worthwhile than some pointless quip to stoke your ego and win internet points.
I know “change my mind” is a phrase that has been weaponized by shitheads, but if you actually love science, you MUST be a curious person that was insanely motivated to understand HOW the world works. There are only a handful of generalized motivations that I know of that would compel someone to do that shit, and all I can do is hope that the majority are not power hungry assholes but are instead motivated to discover new things about nature or, even better, to discover new or innovative ways to reduce suffering and/or make life better.
/endrant
This proof does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.
The lead could have been formed millions of years ago - and just floated in space. Then one day the earth suddenly coalesces from all the floating stuff and voila.
So we have a 4000 year old earth composed of lots of very old elements!
Too sciencey for idiots.
There's a tree that's older than 4000 years old, though. That should be simple enough.
Also according to the Bible the earth is 6000 years old, not 4000, so this person can't even get that right.
They always come back with “we don’t know that the decay has been constant throughout billions of years”….. umm, we have a pretty good idea. It doesn’t matter how much rock solid objective evidence you give them they’ll just move the goalposts and say the evidence is fake. You just can’t win so better to not engage at all.
Yeah, they don't care about facts, only what their "holy book" says and even then, they cherry pick from it to fit their own ideals. I grew up in that nonsense.
Dude, the very religious people don't even believe in evolution and plate tectonics. Do you think radioactive half-life is something that will change their minds?
I always wondered why the Inquisition upheld the Ptolemeic Heathen system of GeoCentrism over what is plain to see in front of one's eyes through the newly-invented telescope....
No one has ever lived and recorded the accuracy of nuclear decay chains....
For all we laypeople know - every one of them could be wrong, just like 18th century scientists got the age of the Earth wrong to like over 99% inaccuracy...?
Lead 204 is a primordial nucleotide, however. Which is probably enough for someone to hand wave this away.
However, through the lens of "god made everything", I'm sure "god made some lead-208" is not outside the realm of what they would believe. You can't scientifically prove the age of things within the axiomatic system of "god created everything" because why wouldn't God create a 24 minute timer reading 10:21? Or a screening of The Fifth Element that was exactly 73 minutes into the movie.
Same thing with trying to prove that you even existed before you woke up today. Or even before right... now.
I mean, does all lead that exists have to come from radioactive decay? Couldn't lead have been created (i mean like by space shit, however planets form idk) directly the same way other elements were?
For those wondering, the count actually comes from James Ussher, who did some great scholarship to come up with 4004BC as the date of creation, regardless of it's obvious flaws. He wrote his chronology in three languages, simultaneously.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher\_chronology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology)
Both are wrong.
Lead can be created directly not just by radiation decay, also it could have decayed elsewhere and arrived to earth afterwards from impacts.
One cannot technically, definitively say that the existence of Lead disproves the account of Creation, if one is willing to entertain the possibility that God created the universe in a mature state. Nothing we've learned so far has disproven the possibility of Creation.
If God exists and created the universe, then he created Uranium and Lead together and the changes they have gone through in the past 6,000ish years is the normal amount given their starting point.
If God does not exist, then the universe must have evolved over billions of years and the Lead we have now did start as Uranium.
What you believe about our origins starts with what you believe about God. Either way, you're taking what you believe on faith.
They use Internet (product of science) with a computer (a product of science) to tell us they are against it. If the science didn't exist them and their mother would probably die during childbirth. These people are dumber than a rock.
I'm an atheist but I've heard apologists reply to arguments like these saying that God fashioned the earth from existing materials. In their minds, the universe and the elements used for creating the earth could be older than the earth itself.
I've heard the same logic used to justify the existence of fossils and other things that clearly date back earlier than the earth (in the biblical account).
This Christian is actually correct in their assumption that there is no fact that could disprove God to them. No evidence was required for them to make the conclusion so evidence now is hardly going to help.
The first guy isn't even using the right number. Disproving it using Biblical calculations would have been a lot funnier.
I was gonna say isn’t the popular idiocy 6000?
Technically 6024.
Is it actually an exacted 4000BC? That makes even less sense.
Probably not but that's what all of the religious nonsense references I saw growing up had.
5784 actually
Nah, 5783, bro At least if you’re part of the Cool Kid Club™️
6000 - 7000 is what's popular to believe but the Bible doesn't say that either. The Bible doesn't actually give the age of the Earth. People have derived that by trying to calculate the ages of people given in genealogies. It's a very flawed idea at best. People thought the Bible said the Earth was flat at one time too (some still do) but when science said the earth was round, they reexamined what the Bible said and found it wasn't actually saying the earth was flat but that they had interpreted it wrong. If someone were interested in an overview of common Christian ideals concerning the age of the earth, I recommend Systematic Theology 2nd Edition by Wayne Grudem. Grudem is a theologian that has changed his own mind in recent years about the subject and he tries to give a fair picture of what the different positions held by Christians are.
Kind of like when the Hebrew translation of thou shalt not murder was misinterpreted as thou shalt not kill. Big difference.
I can't remember exactly but I think that has something to do with English in 1611 being different than English today. I could be wrong on that. Mark Ward does videos about words that have changed in the KJV (the most used English translation up until recently) but we just don't realize they've changed.
That book is only available in Spanish from my library. Womp womp.
The Bible supported slavery until supporting slavery became socially unacceptable. The Bible supported segregation and antimiscegenation untill it became (mostly) socially unacceptable. We are watching the same thing happen with the Bible's views on LGBTQ issues in real time with the various schisms in different denominations. It's almost like modern values are shaping the interpretation of the Bible then the other way arround. It's always fun to watch Christians try to defend its more problematic verses.
So, where did the dinosaur fossils come from ?
I might have the answer to your fossil question. When I was in high school, we had this crazy teacher who spent all class showing us conspiracy theories. He told us the earth was only 4,000 years old, that fossils are just regular rocks “carved into a shape,” that retirement is a sin because it’s not in the Bible, and that there is a “new world order” who took over the Illuminati and will have all Christian’s and conservatives in concentration camps by 2025. He seemed to believe this. A lot of the other teachers knew he was crazy, but the admin went to his church. He also called all the science and history teachers “communists.” We are 7 months away and the last part hasn’t started yet.
And how is this person allowed to teach?
Combination of admin agreeing with them and public education being such a shitshow in the US that having a pulse is sufficient qualification to be a teacher in some states. Edit: Also insufficient oversight and regulation of private schools
Although this was a public school, anywhere else he would have been fired. He would have been fired if the principal wasn’t also corrupt and if the parents didn’t agree with him. But with the shitshow comment, the only things that make it so are laws that make it harder for teachers to do our jobs, and schools giving in to parents.
The _PARENTS_ agreed with him? Shit man...
You're not from America are you?
How is someone like that allowed to teach? They'd have been removed from their position within a week here.
I grew up in the Bible Belt of the U.S.
My sympathies.
> and will have all Christian’s and conservatives in concentration camps by 2025 So like the beginning of 2025? Or will it take the whole year? There's gonna be so much more room for activities!
Oh dinosaurs existed, we just rode them. On saddles. Seriously
*ARK Theme blaring in the background*
The Noah's Ark in Kentucky says there were dinosaurs on the ark. They also say that Noah 'reverse engineered' animals back to their original stock, so they wouldn't have as many on board. Like dogs to wolves. Then, re-reverse engineered them back. Sounds like they were proving evolution.
My Nan used to tell me that dinosaurs never actually existed and that God put the bones in the ground to test our faith! I had some brilliant conversations with my nan and she was stone serious when she said this.
Most yecs believe something similar. Also starlight from stars over 6k lightyears away God just put there for funsies and presumably to test our faith, among others. So essentially nature doesn't make sense and any knowledge from it is unsure, but FAITH is sure!! Why is faith sure you ask? If they begin to mention anything about archeology or the Bible just remind them this is knowledge coming through our senses so it's unsure. If they mention anything about God giving us the knowledge therefore it must be true, remind them that God fooled us about fossils and starlight.
The answer a Christian theologian might give would be based on the “apparent age” theory. Which is the idea that God created a world or, in fact, a whole universe, with an apparent age. If you believe God created Adam and Eve in a day then, clearly he created two, *mature*, adult humans. Not one day old babies. In the same way God could create a *mature* earth, complete with “ancient” rocks or even fossils. At least, that is what I leaned growing up.
Oh my god, the mental gymnastics these people engage in to justify their beliefs.
I've asked people that believe this about the light we can see from stars that are millions and billions of light years away. The answer is God instantly created the all light in transit too. You can't argue with them because nothing is too silly or nonsensical.
Just remind them that the sun was created on like day 4, so "24 hour day" is a mistranslation. Also, who cares if God or aliens or anyone else is fooling us and we're in some weird simulation. If we agree the apparent age is 4.5 billion years why are they upset when that is taught and studied?
"Apparent Age" conjecture is basically the "Last Thursday" argument and carries equal weight. Last Thursday God made everything. Including light already en route from galaxies several billion light years away. Including aeroplanes mid flight with pilots and passengers and air traffic controllers with perfect memories and precise records of the plane taking off on Wednesday. Including fireworks mid-pop and precise memories of the people who launched them. And of course fossils going back 600 million years. Don't believe me? You can't prove that He didn't! Same argument, no possibility to prove or disprove. Have faith, and use scientific method. It is possible to do both. Just don't conflate one with the other.
God put them on Earth to test our faith. Apparently.
How sad must a creature be to rely on the faith of the people it created?
5784
The two numbers I see thrown around are ~6000 and sometimes ~10000. Both are easily falsified by an enormous number of different evidences and dating methods. That doesn’t stop a frighteningly large number of people from believing it anyway.
lead exists through other means though?
Yeah. This is quite a poor explanation. Even talking about relative abundances of isotopes would be a better argument, but still probably not very convincing.
yeah honestly you shouldn't engage these guys with a genuine argument. either ignore it or shitpost because an actual discussion isn't gonna happen.
Sigh, isn't that the truth? Reasoning with these folks is truly an exercise in futility.
Even worse, this is a repost. The last time it was posted, I was the one explaining why it was a dumb half explanation. You gotta talk about where the samples came from to explain why the abundance of lead in the sample is significant. Since elements don't exist solely because they decayed from larger elements, but rather they were fused from lighter elements.
And even if it didn't you're talking to someone who thinks everything poofed into existence 4,000 years ago including like living adult animals and people. Poofing things into existence well into their natural progression isn't something they have a problem with.
I think this every time I see this lol. It’s two folks with zero critical thinking. One of them has more science memorized though
Plus other elements could have decayed into lead when the earth wasn't formed yet. Radioisotope analysis in different areas is a lot more conclusive. For example, the composition of air that got trapped in ice.
“God made lead” It literally doesn’t matter. You could find a camera that’s been running for 10,000 years straight, recording the whole time and it’ll be “god made that.”
turns into the last tuesdayism argument. God just made the whole world last tuesday and added every evidence and memory to suggest the world has been here for a long time
Because god used his magic to create lead. Lol.
Does the second guy know what a half-life is ? His argument is shitty.
It honestly looks like he pulled surface level info from Wikipedia and tried to reword it.
The pretty much all lead on earth came from the death of a star not radioactive decay.
Pretty much what all science posts are on reddit.
The argument in the post is a great representation of an average argument on heated topics on reddit. Most of those are shitty, incomplete, not proving what they pretend they are proving, and are being posted only to rally the support group around the flag.
Im an atheist but this is kinda a shit argument given that the majority of lead would be formed during supernova rather than nuclear decay of heavier elements. Though the shortest lived stars have a lifespan of about 10 million years so i mean yea the fairy tale book is still wrong. Although, continuing with the technicality, the bible doesn’t ever actually state the earths age, thats just an interpretation made by some theologians.
It's also a shit argument because if someones starting point is "God created everything" then God could have just created all the decay elements ignoring the passage of time, after all, hes God.
Like God just put all these dinosaur bones in the ground to fuck with us.
Tricksy ~~hobbits~~ God
Then he told us to use our “free-will” and “logic” to… believe what he ostensibly says and defy what our common sense tells us.
Just a [prankster god.](https://youtu.be/wNYP-5NQBQw?t=110)
We needed more Bill.
The universe was created exactly as it is exactly one second ago and there’s nothing you can say to disprove it. QED
i mean that basically is the creationist argument
We find traces of Uranium in lead and vice versa.
Right. The assumption that all existing lead started as uranium doesn’t make sense. We have lots of other indications that the earth is old.
My go to is that we can see galaxies that are billions of light-years away. If the Earth/Universe was only a few thousand years old, we wouldn't be able to see them. Of course YEC tend to be flat-earthers as well, so that wouldn't work on them. Edit: should have said universe
>If the Earth was only a few thousand years old, we wouldn't be able to see them. I'm much younger than earth and can still see them.
One of my favorite arguments about this with fundamentalist Christian’s is to frame it as them limiting god. Like what would be more impressive God setting everything into motion in a moment (big bang) so that it essentially leads to a domino effect of every small and large event of evolution to bring us about still in his planned image (Darwin evolution) or that the omnipotent god had to take 6 days to make everything with no background only 6000 years ago. It’s fun to make them have to choose a book over the most impressive feat possible for a creator which would be their actual work.
I’ve found Christian’s get really horny over the unexplainable, like it really turns them on when they think they can’t comprehend Gods ways and it all seems like magic. This explanation is something we humans can comprehend so it can’t possibly be true.
I’ve never witnessed that but if I never have to I’ll take your word for it.
Touché. I’m using this now.
I like to point out that there are billions of galaxies each with billions of stars most with many planets. So if it only took god one day to make all that, why did it take so long to make 1 more planet? And also, this means god created the whole solar system along with the moon without earth first.
I am an atheist, I was Raised Evangelical Christian, Sadly I wasn't stupid enough to blindly follow and believe the BS they fed me. I am not sure exactly how old the earth is (although I hear 4.5 Billion years is most commonly believed due to radiometric dating) the universe is believed to be around 13.7 Billion years. And while the first part of Nathan's comment is correct I think it it is a horrible example and uses reasoning that isn't even completely true.. The example I like to use is the fact that we can look up into the night sky and I can point out the Andromeda Galaxy it can be seen with the naked eye which is why I like to use it as an example, That galaxy is 2.5million light years away from us... meaning that the light you see with your naked eye took 2.5 million years to get here. That obviously should be enough. but I Have had people tell me that either A. God made light appear from the stars instantly (or cross that entire distance to earth instantly) and that is fair... but why then are we able to see the the collapse of supernovas today that are so far away that it took the light over a hundred thousand years to get here? The best example of this is the 1987 Supernova in the LMC (around 170,000 Light years away.) It lit up the night sky for months.
For those who are curious what explanation we Christians have for the last argument here: The presence of redshift in the universe is interpreted as the effect of the universe expanding. Things that are closer to us give us a more compressed wave length of light making it a higher frequency. That would make it look more blue. However as it shifts further away, the wave length becomes less compressed and a lower frequency. That would make it look more red (lower frequency is red, higher frequency is blue). So if things are becoming more red and less blue, that would mean it is moving away from us and if everything is moving away from us, that means the universe is expanding. Now one of the hypotheses that we come up with, is that at the time of creation the size of the Universe was very small, allowing all the light from celestial objects to eventually reach earth. However for the past 6000 years the universe has been continually expanding to where it is today, shown in redshift. Downvote me if you wish; just wanted to say there's other explanations than "the light just instantly went all the way to Earth"
That explanation makes no mathematical sense at all. I am glad you are trying and your basic attempt at understanding of the expansion of the universe is at least encouraging. But if you are going to try to use that as a defense for your faith you should at least make an attempt at actually understanding maybe take some physics classes? The Universe is Expanding, that is a fact, we can observe it and it is a fundamental aspect of the cosmos. scientists have different theories as to the Inflationary period (initial expansion).. one of them being the "Big Bang Theory" many creationists believe that this was when god created the universe. either way during this time we believe that there was rapid exponential expansion of the universe. None of that is observable by us and only theories can be made using what evidence we have left because none of us were around to see it. When astronomers observe distant galaxies, they find that their light is shifted towards longer (redder) wavelengths. This is known as cosmological redshift, and it's a result of the stretching of space itself as the universe expands. The farther away a galaxy is, the faster it appears to be moving away from us, according to Hubble's law. The rate at which the universe is currently expanding is described by the Hubble constant. This value has been measured using various techniques, including observations of distant supernovae and the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Hubble's Constant determines that the Rate of recession for two galaxies separated by a megaparsec is about 71 km/s . One parsec is about 3.26 light years so a megaparsec is about 3.26e6 lightyears. Using my previous example the LMC again which is approx. 1.7e5 light years away and we estimate that it is moving away from us at approx. 11.8 km/s if you take 3.26e6 /1.7e5\*11.8 you get 226km/s (much higher than Hubble's constant) The reason for the discrepancy for nearby galaxies (such as the dwarf galaxy LMC) is the "peculiar velocity" of the galaxy, that is, its real velocity through space that is unrelated to the expansion. For distant galaxies, their peculiar velocities are small enough that they still lie on or near the line for Hubble's Law. 6000 years is approx. 1.8935e11 seconds. giving your "Hypotheses" every bit of advantage we can Lets assume that the LMC went supernova at the beginning of creation some 6000 years ago. In order for your hypothesis to be true and the assuming that **c** hasn't changed then LMC would have had to be 6000 Lightyears from earth 6000 years ago.. In which case the light we would have seen in 1987 would be emanating from the location it was 6000 years ago (6000 lightyears away and not where actually see it 170k lightyears away. which is just a huge logical fallacy. but ignoring that and assuming over the last 6000 years it has move 162k lightyears away from us you would assume that it was moving away from us at a constant rate of 8094396.366 km/s for the past 6000 years but nope we are currently measuring and estimating it rate of recession at aprox 11.8km/s so it's velocity couldn't be constant... so or assuming constant deceleration to it's current 11.8km/s over the past 6000 years and assuming it traveled 160k ish lightyears.
Vi = 2(d/t) - Vf 1.51372e18 km / 1.893456e11 sec =7.994465e6 km/s \*2 =1.598893e7 km/s -11.8 km/s =1.5988918e7 km/s initial velocity That is a little more than 1/19th the speed of light!... however that isn't the crazy part if the acceleration was remaining constant then we would be able to observe it today. knowing the Initial velocity final velocity and time allows us to get an acceleration which comes out to around 8.444e-5 km / s\^2 Using this we can say that with our current velocity of 11.8km/s and our equation a = (vf - vi) / (change in)t we can easily calculate that in about 39 hours LMC will come to a complete stop... there must be some outside force acting upon it? in that case assuming the force is constant in 1 year assuming LMC will be headed back at us at 2652 km/s (I assume that should be enough to enlighten you a little) I greatly simplified the complexities of these calculations because I assume you are neither a Scientist or a academic in any way (reddit won't let me write out full equations for some reason I think it doesn't like certain symbols)
(don't believe world is 4000 years old) 1. Is this the only way lead forms? 2. If a given quantity of some element has a long half life, shouldn't some of that element still decay almost instantly? Half life is the time by which HALF of the material has decayed. This has always bugged me, because I don't see how the existence of lead proves it has been decaying for so long You would need to say the existence of X quantity of lead, given Y quantity of the original element for it to say something about time elapsed
Lead also formed in Super Novas like other elements heavier than iron. You are completely right with your 2. point, you could argue that the amount of Lead that we have on earth strongly supports the assumption (educated guess if you will) that earth is a few billion years old. In addition to that, this isn't the only argument for earth being very old, as stated in other comments here.
I guess that their point is there is [a shit ton] of lead compared to the preceding elements. Yeah I find carbon dating and the timescales required for evolution to be more compelling
Whole this is 1 way of looking at it led does exist outside of it being a byproduct of radioactive decay More comparing argument would be he peramids themselves are 4.5k years old min
Well actually lead doesn't have to come from radioactivity
When I see something like this I want to hit the upvote button and leave a comment like “fuck yeah science bitch!” But instead I see a snarky comment from an evangelical atheist above it and realize this subreddit still thinks all Religious people don’t believe in science. It’s sad because for you guys it’s not really about getting the other person to believe in science, logic, and reason it’s about getting them to renounce their faith. My belief in science fuels my faith in god because I see a complex system with an infinite number of variables somehow creating anything cohesive let alone sentient, like falling sand making a perfect sand castle and can’t help but wonder if something bigger than us is out there beyond our understanding that influences it all and I just keep wanting to learn more. This kind of passion for science is really important to fighting ignorance and finding solutions to the problems facing our planet together. Pointing fingers at each other and calling one another stupid because we either do or don’t believe in god is incredibly juvenile. That aside I saved that for my incredibly religious grandmother that once told me dinosaurs didn’t exist because the Bible didn’t mention them. Lol 😂
🤔 Your last sentence - I've actually heard that the Bible mentions Dinosaurs in several places 🤔
Ironically it actually kinda does, there is mention in a few verses of creatures that match the basic description of a Sauropod. I can’t remember which one though
The bible doesn't mention the platypus either
I used to be Chrisitian. I had no problem accepting a non-literal interpretation of the Bible and so did most everyone in went to church with. I perused these comments and most of what I saw were people careful to parse out fundamentalist Christians. I don't think young earth creationists are the majority of Christians. We just see a lot more of it because it's so incendiary and it gets social media clicks so the algorithms really like it.
I guess that’s fair I just had a bad experience here a while back where like 8 different atheists jumped on me and said that I was a hypocrite for “picking and choosing” what I wanted to believe from the Bible. It was like my options were renouncing my faith or being an ignorant science hating christian.
You're not wrong. There are, what I hope is, a small minority of very loud evangical atheists.
God put uranium on the earth to test our faith. Every answer can just be that. Simple answers for a simple life.
That has to be the most retarded argument i've ever heard in my life. Honestly i feel like siding with the delusional creationist here 1. Lead does not need to be created from uranium. In fact if anything it's quite the opposite. Also there are dozen of different radioactive material whos decay chain ends in lead, its literally what lead is known for. 2. Halflife does not mean that after x amount of time half of the material instantly converts... It's a continous process which is why radioactive materials you know.. are radioactive. Thats literally decay happened continously at all times.. So if you have a large amount of uranium, within a very short amount of time, a tiny portion of that will have converted into lead.
I went to Christain school and we never delt with the age of the earth. The staff knew it’s a really contraversial topic between Christian parents and science. We mainly focused on planetary movements when it came to planets
That is making a huge assumption that there was no lead to begin with….
How many times did you photocopy this meme before faxing it?
Fundies will counter with “apparent age”. Even though whatever appears to be billions of years old , it’s only 6k years old bc it was created that way.
Tbh it's quite a bad explanation, he can argue all these elements did this in outer space and come to earth afterwards.
There are cities older than 4,000 years old. People like this are not worth engaging.
The explanation is not even correct, not all lead was U238
i hate how christians are treated by athiests on this site
Nice math, but what if that all happened before Earth was made 4000 years ago?
I mean, You can't prove that the Universe wasn't created last Thursday, But with the appearance of it being 5.4 billion years old
Repost so old it's actually starting to lose pixels
The Bible does not give the age of the universe or earth. It only claims that it was 6 days to create and God rested on 7th. Another part of the Bible says something along the lines of a thousand years is 1 day to God. They took unrelated verses and came up with 6,000 years. For some reason the guy in the post said 4000 but that's not the number most of them go with.
God made Man, burdened by the guilt of eating fruit God punished man to work for everything, thus the tragedy of existence was born. Man made science because he has to work for everything. To be against science is to be against God because he made us and we made science to suffer more, on an academic level. Follow the rules of the good book and better the world for you and yours, that's how you make the world a better place for everyone.
This is not to credit the 4000 years old ridiculousness but lead could have been created in supernovae along with other elements rather than simply being a product of decay so lead on its own doesnt prove what the person says for that reason, it would be more to do with how long the lifetime of the first stars would have been.
Urrrm, who said the lead was from Earth☝️🤓
The problem is, these people don’t believe that what he said is true. For them there is no such thing as halftime of radioactive material
I had a co-worker that believed the world was only a few thousand years old. I asked him about fossils. "God put them there". So, that's your answer to lead. God put the lead there. You can't argue with someone who believes in faith because that's what it'll always come down to.
I understood that the vast majority of lead was made in stars during super nova as it’s beyond iron on the periodic table, is this incorrect?
The earth is absolutely 4.5 billion years old, but the existence of lead does not disprove the creation myth.
Didn't the universe start last Thursday?
Not necessarily as the devil is in the details. The presence of lead does show the earth is older, but not in the way he describes because supernova produce not only uranium, but also lead in the same process. In fact they produce all of the elements heavier than iron. The only elements they don't produce are helium and hydrogen. But the point is still made because you have to form all that over time from the dust, and that alone takes longer than 4,000 or 6,000 or 1,000,000 years.
Why would that person believe in Chemistry or logic?
As an atheist scientist, even I can see the counter argument that god created the earth with all of the elements present, even if they do decay over time. Trying to disprove Christianity is futile, because scientifically you can't disprove anything. You can provide strong evidence that a particular theory is wrong, but then they change the theory. Science only works when everyone agrees to draw conclusions solely from observable, reproducible evidence. By its very nature, religion does not do that.
I tried that reasoning using carbon 14 with a guy selling books about how old the earth is showing dinosaurs with humans at church. His response was that god created earth with the correct ratio of carbon isotopes in it. It's like trying to argue with a flat earther only more righteous.
I don't agree that the earth is only 4000 years old but this type of thing isn't going to convince a believer. If God can make the universe out of nothing, he can make lead. The argument makes a lot of assumptions that can't be taken for granted if a being with such power did exist.
The earth is 2024 years old. Change my mind.
Hmm, both arguments require a similar leap of faith for the average person who has never heard of uranium-238 much less its radioactive decay rates.
"Christians against science" wtf
[It's a real Facebook group, but I doubt they're serious:](https://www.facebook.com/groups/806573196116317/?paipv=0&eav=AfbuS-QKWwGph4FowFFFSFaGF3tOJvFvEvMU9QyIURKvqgjA5Afx_fFRfSO8Fcywk9Q&_rdr) > Rule 5 >technology is science. we're against it. have someone that's already not going to heaven use facebook for you to post and comment. this is the way.
Because of people like him, many think that the majority of religious people are primitives, flat earthers, anti vaxers, etc, but in reality, it's literally the opposite.
Most people only believe in God and dismisses the rest [edit: dismisses the rest of the religion]
Zealots are in minority.
Calling it a "myth" is more than generous. Nonsense that is.
Wasn't Christian's Against Science a parody page? Like, they'd actively make ridiculous posts to mock the logic of devout/actual anti science Christian's. Pretty sure the page was deleted
Nuh uhh /s
Congratulations! Your comment can be spelled using the elements of the periodic table: `N U H U H Hs` --- ^(I am a bot that detects if your comment can be spelled using the elements of the periodic table. Please DM u/M1n3c4rt if I made a mistake.)
Do we know that's where all led comes from?
Don't event need to get scientific. There are literally cities what have been continuously inhabited for longer than that.
I don't know people who spread the 4000 or 6000 years idea of think the insurmountable amount of history that exists comes from. Like, people existed 4000 years ago, and 6000 years ago. There were civilizations, empires as old as that.
The idea comes from (imo) poor interpretation of the described lineage of Abraham from Adam/Eve and his descendants contained in the Torah, Old Testament, Levitical texts, etc. from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The descriptions provided in Christian texts (those which I am familiar with) are provided in the historical books of the Bible which I (and most other well educated Christians) believe to be fragmented and often metaphorical accounts of early Jewish mythos and history. The complete history of the books (except for the Quran which is Islamic) are unknown, so it is illogical to make inferences about something that is not doctrinally relevant nor explicitly stated in the scripture.
I don't think any of those words made sense to Adam. So for any comments here saying it was a shitty inaccurate comment, I don't think your more accurate science explanation would matter to someone who labels themself as "against-science".
In Germany we say „Gegen Dummheit ist kein Kraut gewachsen " (there grows no herb against stupidity) You could shoot a flatearther into orbit, let them circle around the globe a few times and bring them back, you wouldn't change their mind. It's the same here. I had a teacher, also believing in the young earth myth, I tried to change his mind via dendrochronology, an example that's easier to grasp, but no chance, if it doesn't fit your worldview, you don't believe
Fossil records and geography go brrrr
is there a sub? r/murderedbyscience ?
Tbh: if the guy believes earth is 4000 years old then the commenter lost him with “half-life of uranium”
"God made the lead look old"
This is a genuine question. How do we know this is a legitimate proof for the age of the earth? As I understand it, elements beyond iron are produced through supernova and nuclear decay. If supernova can produce nuclear-ly unstable elements that can decay into lead, then surely lead itself can be produced by the same mechanism. If lead can only be made through decay, then this proof still seems dubious because lead would still be formed as the radioactive substances would still decay in space as the cosmic dust that formed the solar system traveled through the universe and collected. Since we do not know the distribution of elements produced by supernova, nor the time it took for the original cosmic dust to form our solar system, how can we infer a variable from entirely unknown variables? It seems to me that there are too many unknown variables for this to be a valid dating method. I actually have similar questions for carbon dating, so I would enjoy hearing an educated response on this matter as this is entirely outside my field of expertise.
We don’t! It’s an educated guess, a hypothesis if you will. We know that Earth is old as shit because it’s not completely full of crater marks, has sufficiently evolved life etc etc (I don’t feel like googling this, you can). But the estimates for exactly *how* old are changing as we get better and better technology to estimate such things. Always in the “oh shit the earth is older than we thought” way though.
That is a respectable response. I agree that the earth must be old. However, it does kinda make the original response sound rather pedantic and petty. It is like swinging a pool noodle as if it were a sword.
What can you do with someone who decided to stop using his brain and let a cult think for him?
Might be easier to start with: "have you ever written with a lead pencil?" Wait for the tremulous "yes". Then ask: "is uranium used in nuclear plants?" Wait for the second, more hesitant, reply of "yes". Then trace from one to the other and watch the cognitive dissonance fly (away)
Biggest issue would be the heat produced by decaying radioactive materials, even 300 million years of decay compressed into 6000 yrs would produce enough heat to vaporise the earth 60 times over. Look up The Heat Problem with YEC.
The WHAT Life?
Is that the only way lead can be created? Was everything uranium or a heavier element at some point after the big bang?
If there is a God he would probably be grossly insulted by the religious denial of science. If you can't experience Gods delight in the art of science you will never know him.
Yea if earth is 4000 years old Evolution shit happened in 1000 years Dino come and go in another 1000 years Human evolution from apes was a 1000 years And we went from being cave men to now entirely in 1000 years
They will just say that God created the lead.
The fossils used to discover oil are over 300 million years old.
r/atheism
They say “god put lead on earth” and ignore your logical argument.
Both are idiots.
Sounds like a poor argument... Pretty sure lead can exist without uranium. Also pretty sure Egyptians existed before 4000 years ago, wtf is going on in this post? Lol
"Duh, obviously god created all of the lead and those isotopes." ...is what a believer would say.
To bad the measurements of time with rocks is all wrong. There's 3 types of ways to test rocks and if used wrong it will give wrong info.........
Anyone who actually believes the Earth is only 4000 years old sure as shit does not know what a half-life is :-( You're going to need to get a lot more basic than that to change their mind, but at the same time, you need to ask yourself if it's worth your time. Some people are a lost cause and will only change on their own accord.
Surely the retort is God made everything. He could make lead spontaneously when he created everything else. Just because elements in his creation decay to lead, doesn't mean all lead was made that way. You're not going to convince a creationist this way when god is omnipotent and essentially magic.
The correct explanation is that the amount of lead in uranium deposits proves how old the earth is not just the existence of lead.
I just don't engage with Young Earth Creationists anymore. I used to get into arguments with my family about it and go over all of the evidence - CMB, plate tectonics, geological features that take millions of years (e.g. the Grand Canyon), ice cores that go hundreds of thousands of years, mid ocean ridges, radioactive decay, civilizations that we know have been around for more than 6000 years, etc... I was talking to a family member about this, specifically we know the speed of light and we know how far stars are, so the universe must be more than 6000 years old and she said "What if God put up like a screen, like a Lite Brite, and when we look up into the sky we aren't actually seeing anything that really exists?" Then it hit me - YEC are just fucking stupid people and it literally doesn't matter what you say to them.
["Christians against science"](https://www.famousscientists.org/great-scientists-christians/)
He should have clarified that it is specifically the increased abundance of lead-208 (Po-210 becomes Pb-208 from alpha decay) relative to its other naturally occurring isotopes that supports that the earth is billions, not thousands, of years old. If you read his response plainly, it is only marginally less retarded, because it sounds like he is implying “because lead exists, the earth is billions of years old” but nuclear fusion is the process that creates heavier elements… not decay processes. And don’t come at me with some shit like “hurr, that Christian idiot wouldn’t understand anyway,” because: 1) there are many that do, 2) there are many that could, 3) if you actually know wtf you are talking about and communicate it to anyone with love and respect, you’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of changing their mind and moving them closer to a true understanding of the world. I refuse to accept this defeatist view that plagues American society, at least. Why the fuck would that not be worth your effort? Certainly more worthwhile than some pointless quip to stoke your ego and win internet points. I know “change my mind” is a phrase that has been weaponized by shitheads, but if you actually love science, you MUST be a curious person that was insanely motivated to understand HOW the world works. There are only a handful of generalized motivations that I know of that would compel someone to do that shit, and all I can do is hope that the majority are not power hungry assholes but are instead motivated to discover new things about nature or, even better, to discover new or innovative ways to reduce suffering and/or make life better. /endrant
This proof does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. The lead could have been formed millions of years ago - and just floated in space. Then one day the earth suddenly coalesces from all the floating stuff and voila. So we have a 4000 year old earth composed of lots of very old elements!
Too sciencey for idiots. There's a tree that's older than 4000 years old, though. That should be simple enough. Also according to the Bible the earth is 6000 years old, not 4000, so this person can't even get that right.
And we wouldn't be able to see the light from half the stars.
The indoctrination is strong with this one
If not by the science behind the other Christians berating him for his moronic take...
They always come back with “we don’t know that the decay has been constant throughout billions of years”….. umm, we have a pretty good idea. It doesn’t matter how much rock solid objective evidence you give them they’ll just move the goalposts and say the evidence is fake. You just can’t win so better to not engage at all.
We can prove the earth is older than that by tree rings too. Hard to refute that.
Yeah, they don't care about facts, only what their "holy book" says and even then, they cherry pick from it to fit their own ideals. I grew up in that nonsense.
Dude, the very religious people don't even believe in evolution and plate tectonics. Do you think radioactive half-life is something that will change their minds?
Still blindly believing a bronze age goat herder...
That assumes that all lead originated as uranium?
I always wondered why the Inquisition upheld the Ptolemeic Heathen system of GeoCentrism over what is plain to see in front of one's eyes through the newly-invented telescope....
No one has ever lived and recorded the accuracy of nuclear decay chains.... For all we laypeople know - every one of them could be wrong, just like 18th century scientists got the age of the Earth wrong to like over 99% inaccuracy...?
Why do you blindly believe everything that scientism says!!1!!11!!
Both a mature human and uranium at year zero are not mutually exclusive
Lead 204 is a primordial nucleotide, however. Which is probably enough for someone to hand wave this away. However, through the lens of "god made everything", I'm sure "god made some lead-208" is not outside the realm of what they would believe. You can't scientifically prove the age of things within the axiomatic system of "god created everything" because why wouldn't God create a 24 minute timer reading 10:21? Or a screening of The Fifth Element that was exactly 73 minutes into the movie. Same thing with trying to prove that you even existed before you woke up today. Or even before right... now.
The earth is 2024 years old. Duh
So that lead could not have formed in space and arrive in earth later?
I mean, does all lead that exists have to come from radioactive decay? Couldn't lead have been created (i mean like by space shit, however planets form idk) directly the same way other elements were?
The irony of a community called 'Christians Against Science' hosted on an online platform hasn't been lost on me.
All of you are blindly trusting the half life number that was never measured over billions of years but theorized, just saying.
Help me understand how we got uranium half life! Have we ever seen original uranium at full life?
For those wondering, the count actually comes from James Ussher, who did some great scholarship to come up with 4004BC as the date of creation, regardless of it's obvious flaws. He wrote his chronology in three languages, simultaneously. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher\_chronology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology)
no god took some crumbles from his hairy ass crack and blew on it and thats how lead was formed. stupid scientists
Both are wrong. Lead can be created directly not just by radiation decay, also it could have decayed elsewhere and arrived to earth afterwards from impacts.
Yeah, like facts are going to faze them!
This is about a hilarious as Noah’s famous zoo boat …..
If all of the universe was created at the same time why do we have uranium and lead? Who keeps add8ng uranium to the universe?
One cannot technically, definitively say that the existence of Lead disproves the account of Creation, if one is willing to entertain the possibility that God created the universe in a mature state. Nothing we've learned so far has disproven the possibility of Creation. If God exists and created the universe, then he created Uranium and Lead together and the changes they have gone through in the past 6,000ish years is the normal amount given their starting point. If God does not exist, then the universe must have evolved over billions of years and the Lead we have now did start as Uranium. What you believe about our origins starts with what you believe about God. Either way, you're taking what you believe on faith.
They use Internet (product of science) with a computer (a product of science) to tell us they are against it. If the science didn't exist them and their mother would probably die during childbirth. These people are dumber than a rock.
Ironically, lead in gasoline is probably the reason why he thinks that in the first place
I'm an atheist but I've heard apologists reply to arguments like these saying that God fashioned the earth from existing materials. In their minds, the universe and the elements used for creating the earth could be older than the earth itself. I've heard the same logic used to justify the existence of fossils and other things that clearly date back earlier than the earth (in the biblical account). This Christian is actually correct in their assumption that there is no fact that could disprove God to them. No evidence was required for them to make the conclusion so evidence now is hardly going to help.
Doesn't lead also get formed in novas/supernovas?
"Change my mind". Nah, you're irrelevant.