Christians: I have a fossil in my hand it has been dated to be over 2 million years old by several?

Question

dating methods. How can you prove me wrong? Note:refencees to the bible can not be counted as being as being realible, as they have been rewritten and pass down and changed throughout the ages. Nor can gut feelings be counted as being trustwrothy.

Please note there are over 20 diffent methods of dating, not just carbon 14.

Answer 1

I cannot prove you wrong, nor can anyone else.

Answer 2

The dating methods used come with unsupportable presuppositions. For instance most fossils are dated by calculating how long the soil layers where the fossil was formed took to accumulate. The presupposition is that those layers formed under normal situations like the ones we observe today.

When Mt Saint Helens exploded in the 1980's there were massive mud slides that formed soil layers in 4 hours that scientists who looked at them would have guessed took 12 million years to form if they hadn't know that they were a result of the volcanic eruption. If the eruption had occurred a thousand years earlier and a native American had been caught in one of those mud slides scientists would have been publishing a report about human life in the North American continent 12 million years ago.

Fossils are not the norm. Unless an animal falls into a tar pit or there is some other out of the ordinary occurence when the animal dies there will be no fossil remains. If a world wide flood occurred as is described in the book of Genesis where it says that fountains of the earth broke lose then there would have been all sorts of geologic irregularities that would have formed soil layers like those observed at Mt Saint Helens and fossils would have also been created at the same time. There would have also been dramatic climate changes if there had been a vapor canopy overhead creating a greenhouse effect. Early in the book of Genesis it says that rain had not fallen on the ground and that plants were watered by underground sources. That could explain why wooly mammoths have been found in the arctic circle frozen solid in blocks of ice with semi-tropical plants still in their stomachs.

Another dating method that has recently come into question is radiometric dating. Scientists look for radioactive decay in items that they are attempting to date and when they used the standard method on diamonds they came up with dates of hundreds of millions of years. But when the Creation Research Institute tried those same tests using helium as a dating indicator they found that the diamonds were around 6 thousand years old plus or minus 2 thousand years. That's very significant because after 10 thousand years there should be no traces of helium left.

Answer 3

How was it dated and by whom?

1. There are a variety of ways of dating artifacts. Most of those methods are reliable only to a few thousand years at most. Of course, if the fossil were found in a rock then the fossil can be dated according to the age of the rock in which it was found. But how is the rock dated? Probably according to the fossils found in it.

Do many fossils still possess Carbon 14? Maybe about as much as petrified wood does?


AND, so what if it is ACCURATELY dated to be "over 2 million years old"?

2. Have you considered
http://aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Age_of_the_Universe.asp ?

Answer 4

You are incorrect about the Bible. The Bible's account of creation does NOT....I say DOES NOT indicate the world was created in 6 literal 24 hour days a mere 6,000 year ago like you and other people think it does. According to the Bible the creation process was in 6 epochs or eras which could have been hundreds of thousands or millions of years long each!!!

I know the Bible uses the term "day" BUT.....
If you were to say: "In my Granfather's "day" they drove model A Fords". I would know that you were not talking about a 24 hour period, but instead you are talking about the period of time long ago when your Grandfather was young.

The Genesis account, and the language of the Bible allows for the use of the term "Day" in that very way. The term day can mean "age" or "era" or "epoch". In fact look at the context in Genesis 2:4. In that location clearly day does not mean a 24 hour period.

A very important proof of this is that the 6 creative days came to an end....but NOT the 7th "day" on which God "rested". The apostle Paul indicated in his writings that the 7th day had not ended. Clearly the 7th day is way longer than 24 hours.

Now consider the physical evidence. Much like the fossil you hold...The scientists dig down through layer upon layer only to find that the various layers MATCH the description of the epochs or days of creation found in Genesis.

The fact is that if "creationists" had argued in harmony with the Bible instead of insisting that creation was only 6 literal days long only about 6,000 years ago....then perhaps the true creation account could be taught or at least stated in the public school ciriculums.

Now....as for the radio carbon dating methods....they are extremely accurate with items which date back about 4500 years ago, but there are consistancy problems with items older than that. That is another discussion.

Answer 5

Well, considering there must be a great unifying force of all things, we could consider the possibility that the state of the Earth as it is now is not the way it has always been. Our planet may have been subjected to major upheavals, possibly the ones that caused the great extinctions.

For example, a passing comet, glowing with electromagnetic energy, could have passed by and zapped the Earth. This may have effected decay rates. Great catastrophes like the ones our ancient ancestors passed down in their myths and legends may actually have been true. Thor drinking the oceans, Mars being scarred by a great lightning bolt (Valles Marineris), Saturn swallowing a rock swathed in fur, they could all hold some information if you can look at it from the eyes of an uneducated native who knows nothing of science.

Answer 6

I need not need to prove you wrong, that you have done that yourself,by the flawed reasoning, you use in proving your case(Fossil dated over 2 million years of age, you say it was dated to be this age, dated by what means?Carbon and other means of testing available in the scientific world has its limitations, how, can you possibly believe it to be accurate in dating of 2 million years ago, you were not alive then, to validate this, nor was any person living on earth today, therefore you cannot say how old it is for a fact, or then can you tell me how big is the universe or where does it end where does it begin?

Answer 7

Carbon dating estimates have changed dramatically over the last 40 years and it is based on assumptive calculation

But the fossil you hold in your hand... Where did it come from...?

It just grew out of ultimatly nothing at all right?

Isnt that a little illogical?


,,, everything has a cause, and something as complex as a living creature with a symetrically systematic and organised skeletal structure does not just accidently happen.

Just take a look at your hand, its an Engineering mastepiece of genius with its combination of skeletal, varying tissue density self healing functions, hydrualic circulation and complexity, and its alive.

An ingeneous masterminds fingerprints are all over you and your wolrd,,,

This is the only logical conclusion.
Such art demands further investigation

Look to the claims on creatrionests and see for yourself

p.s
Fossils are cool though

Thanks for your question

(-:

Answer 8

Why do you think that all Christians dispute the ideas and theories of science.
My contention is simple, dinosaurs did roam this earth at one time, I can see their remains at the Museum.
Rocks and rock formations can be carbon 14 dated to several million years old.
Recorded human history dates back about 6,000 years.
What's the problem???

Answer 9

Why would I want to prove you wrong?

Oh, but btw, all you've proven is the rock around the fossil is 2 million years old, you no longer have the actual bug.

Answer 10

I'm not Christian, but was raised Catholic and married to my soul mate, a Jewish man. I'll answer you in the same way that did my 13 year old son, God did not tell us how long it took to create the world. It could have taken million of years to create the world and then create man. A great question, I'm looking forward to other people's answers.

Answer 11

The world is flat. The atom will never be split. Man will never go to the moon. Just a few quotes from SEVERAL scientists. Which one of these guys are you quoting?