What ammo do Christians have against fossils being millions of years old?

Question

I'd just like to know, I'm feeling abit down and I need a laugh.

Answer 1

The age of fossils is not a fact. It is an interpretation of a fact. The fact is that fossils have very little Carbon 14, a radio active isotope found in all living things.

We can also determine the half life of Carbon 14, another fact. The half life is the rate at which the isotope deteriorates. Since Carbon 14 begins to deteriorate at death, the older something is, the less Carbon 14 there will be.

From these facts scientists have concluded (and right or wrong, are justified in making such a conclustion) that the fossils are very, very old. However, there are two things that scientists cannot know for certain that could affect the results. First of all, we do not know if all living things have ALWAYS had the same amounts of Carbon 14 in them while they were alive. It is possible that 2000 years ago living things had FAR less Carbon 14 in them. It is also possible they had the same. Secondly, we do not know if something else has caused the numbers to drop prematurely. Most creationists believe that the fossils are there as a result of Noah's flood. We also know that Carbon 14 is water soluble. Creatures that were burried as the result of a flood would have had most of the Carbon 14 removed from their carcases before fossilization began.

The truth of the matter is the fossil record neither confirms nor refutes either creationism or evolution. It does, however, support both theories. Anyone, on either side, who says otherwise is either ignorant, or blinded by their own prejudices. I hope that you decide not to laugh, but can see that there are intelligent scientists interpreting the same facts on both sides of the issue.

Answer 2

They have ammo, but nobody told them they were blanks.

The two biggest things they have are carbon dating and fossils found in rock strata.

Now carbon dating has it's flaws in that it's only good for about 40,000 years. The main idea is that for every X carbon-12 atoms there are Y carbon-14 atoms which are radioactive. Now, there's a thing called "half-life" in which a radioactive isotope decays over a period of time. It's half-life is the period of time it would take for half of that sample to decay into it's inert form. For carbon-14 the half-life is around 5730 years. This means it takes almost 6000 years for a sample of carbon-14 to decay into nitrogen-14. After 40,000 years or so the carbon-14 has decayed away completely into nitrogen-14 as such, there is none left and this is where carbon-14 dating ends. Fundies will say that if this is where it ends, how do you know it's older than that? Ha ha ha! This proves a young Earth and gawddidit!

Trying to explain to them that things like Potassium-40 / Argon-40 dating has a longer half-life on the order or 1.25 billion years just makes them give you a blank look.

Then there's the rock-strata / fossil problem. Again, due to such things as folding and faulting sometimes a younger layer of sedimentary rock will wind up over an older layer. Or things fall into a crack in the rocks which later seals up and miraculously you have a petrified tree that's 2 million years old at the bottom and 600 thousand years old at the top. This however is not how it works.

Yes, scientists can date fossils by the layer of rock they're found in. For example, a trilobite dies millions of years ago and is buried in the ocean. Sediment builds up on the ocean floor in layers (as sediment does) and eventually after a really really long time it becomes shale. By testing the radioactive isotopes in the shale and finding they're several million years old it can be said that the trilobite found in those layers of shale is roughly the same age as the rock it was found in.

Answer 3

Fossils are only proof against a narrow sighted, ignorant person's idea of God. How is it evidence against God, to find fossils that predate our accepted notion of civilization? The idea is that God created everything, including the organisms and geological preservatives that make up fossils. God existed before 'time', and was said in Genesis to have created the earth before he created man. This does not contradict the science of fossils! lol But, I do see where you're coming from. I live in Central Va. near Libery University=they showcase dinosaur bones claiming they're only 3,000 years old! It's mindboggling to see, but keep in mind the University's founder was a narrow minded Evangelist by name of Jerry Falwell (featured in 'The People vs. Larry Flynt'). So the only case you really have is that modern Christians have expressed that "God planted these bones to deceive us",etc....and I must agree, it's both sad and hilarious...

Answer 4

Hello,

Carbon dating just measures in thousands of years. For other dating methods Potassium / Argon is used along with other tools:

Radioactive Isotopes Commonly Used for Determining Ages of Rocks
Isotope Half-Life Daughter Product
K-40 1.3 billion years Ar-40
U-238 4.5 billion years Pb-206
U-235 713 million years Pb-207
Th-232 14.1 billion years Pb-208
Rb-87 49 billion years Sr-87
C-14 5,730 years N-14

Also I work as a geologist in Western Canada and on my last project on the prairies I drilled down to 950 m and found limestones, dolomites along with seashell and coral reef fossils even though there is ice and snow on the ground. This was beach front property once that was in a tropical climate.
So observation common sense and knowing rates of deposition models also helps figure this question out. Sounds more simple than the Devil putting coral sea environment here just to fool the wicked don't you think?

Cheers,

Michael Kelly

Answer 5

The concept of dating the earth first began with Lyllel, who argued that as the earth aged, rock sediment was deposited creating layers. Makes sense right? Sure. And it was his book that Darwin took with him on his new job, which took Darwin to the mouth of the Amazon river where he saw these sediments in plain view. Problem is, no one denies sedimentary build-up, but Lyllel took it one step further and drafted an age of the earth based off of what he called a 'geologic column.' He used this to date the earth, and therefore the fossils found within that layer of sediment. Problem is, he conducted no scientific analysis to substantiate his claim, merely postualted everything. Now you cannot take one piece of limestone and determine its age relative to another, and yet he did, which is why his column has three separate layers within it, all of which has a clearly defined age. Scientifically, that cannot be done. This is where the circular reasoning began, as the rock layers dated the fossils, which than dated the rock layer. He said you would find this dinosaur in this layer of limestone, and so therefore the rock layer is this many years old, because we know that this fossil is this many years old...bogus science. So then radiation dating began to come as a means to substatiate these ages, since no one could find this mythical geologic column. Potassium-Argon, Carbon-14, all were means of extracting the age of something based off the trace amounts of these radioactive isotopes present within the fossil. Problem here in lies, that many find these to be whole inadequate, especially when an analysis on a harbor seal that had died three days prior showed to have existed 170 years ago, based off of these dating methods. So these methods has too many variables to dispute them, which is why the ID crowd loves it when people bring them up. Additionally, there have been no discovers of any transitional forms within the fossil record of animals, let alone plants and insects, so that serves to discredit the notion of the fossil validity. Finally, a fossil, (just like oil) is created in a rapid event, which prevents the creature from decayin in conventional methods, or being carried away by other animals. So how you you find entire fossilized remains of creatures where there are upside down (standing on their head) with their head in one strata of sediment, their neck in another, and the rest of their body continuing up into others...which would point out that this creature was dead, on its head of 5 million years of sediment. More over, how do we have entire petrified forests in Alaska doing the same exact thing. This serves to discredit not only the nothing of a gradual time frame, as this all would have had to happen dramatically and all at once, but also the notion of any real continuity with the timeline of strata development and its use as a guidepost for the earth's development.

Answer 6

I like C.L. Richardson's answer.

"Carbon dating is only accurate to 40,000 years and carbon-dated fossils are younger than 40,000 years, so all fossils must be."

Of course most things dated by Carbon Dating are younger 40,000 years. That's because things that are older than 40,000 years are generally dated using Potassium-Argon dating. Carbon dating is only used to accurate date young things, so obviously most things dated by Carbon Dating are young.

I also like Mr. Richardson's claim that "Radioactive dating can't be observed because it would take millions of years." I'm not sure why he thinks it's unjustified to assume that the laws of physics don't change on a whim, but I guess he does.

Also, I think you should note that there's a difference between Christians and Creationists. Creationists are the ones who don't believe in an old Earth. Plenty of Christians do.

Answer 7

Nothing substantial.

Their main argument is that the whole fossil-age thing is a laugh because a) you can tell the age of the fossil by the strata it's found in and b) you can tell the age of the strata by some of the fossils found in it.

This might seem like a logical fallacy if you don't think about it for more than two seconds. But any thinking person sees the obvious use and scientific truth in such a method. I won't go into it here - that's what Google is for.

Answer 8

Actual? None. Just read C.L. Richardson's "answer" for a fine example of christians lies on the subject.
Not only does he NOT have a single clue, but he's boasting about it!

And in REAL life; more precise dating methods are being tested every year. And the dating methods we have currently are not too bad to start with.
Yeah, it's when these morons start spewing about "Skewed" methods that I have to stop and say "prove it".
Because trust me, peer reviewed means just that. Someone had taken the time to review the evidence and gone over it with a fine toothed comb in order to poke holes in the evidence.
Creationists, on the other hand have, what? An outdated book of bronze age jewish mythology. And that's just pitiful.

Edit;
To sit ubu, THANK YOU! that is, without a doubt, one of the BEST analogies about creationism that I've read in a long time!
I hope you don't mind but I'm going to print it out and keep it.

Answer 9

Ammo - Genesis is a myth. Most Christians I know are not Creationists. But if you need a laugh....

A burglar broke into a house one night. He shone his flashlight around, looking for valuables, and when he picked up a CD player to place in his sack, a strange, disembodied voice echoed from the dark saying, "Jesus is watching you."

He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his flashlight off and froze.

When he heard nothing more, after a while, he shook his head, promised himself a vacation after the next big score, then clicked the light back on and began searching for more valuables.

Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires, clear as a bell he heard, "Jesus is watching you."

Freaked out, he shone his light around frantically, looking for the source of the voice

Finally, in the corner of the room, his flashlight beam came to rest on a parrot. "Did you say that?" He hissed at the parrot.

"Yep," the parrot confessed, then squawked, "I am just trying to warn you."

The burglar relaxed. "Warn me, huh? Who the hell are you?"

"Moses," replied the bird.

"Moses?" the burglar laughed. "What kind of stupid people would name a parrot Moses?

The bird promptly answered, "Probably the same kind of people that would name a rottweiler Jesus..."

Answer 10

Why would Christians need ammo? The overwhelming majority of Christians believe in evolution and science just like you do.