So this TBM is spouting off on a social media site. I asked him to explain what he meant about the earth is only 6,000 years old and gets all defensive and refuses to explain his statements. Then he starts calling me names and accusing me of stuff as some kind of righteous defense. The real kicker is then he starts posting what a great job he did defending the church.

What is it with TBM's not being able to explain their silly beliefs and their need to insult?

They don't actually believe the earth is only 6000 years old do they. Isn't it pretty well proven geologically that the earth is waaaaaaay older than that like above the millions even billions of years.

Actually a great many people believe exactly that.

It is a good reason to hate scriptures... they have a tendency to make otherwise smart people ignorant just to propagate their own existence.

I thought they just believed that man started 6000 years ago and not the actual earth Jesus this is bad.

The Bible (and Torah and Quran) say quite clearly that Earth was created in 6 days. Man came during that period.

"4 in 10 Americans Believe God Created Earth 10,000 Years Ago"
http://www.livescience.com/46123-many-americans-creationists.html

To be precise, what the Mormon church teaches is that about six thousand years ago, Adam and Eve "fell" and were ejected from the Garden of Eden. At that point, death entered into the world. Before that, the church claims everything on Earth was in an immortal state. So, the Mormon teachings are a bit of a twist on the standard Creationist view, but still as much of a problem, since many organisms are buried in rocks and sediments laid down far longer than six thousand years ago.

Growing up my mom explained away carbon dating by saying God collected pieces to create Earth from all over the universe so the actual rocks might be older than the earth itself. She also claims that dinosaur fossils were already embedded in said rocks and that they never actually roamed this earth because they aren't described in the creation story.

Just FYI, carbon dating isn't used to get an age of the earth.
Carbon dating (actually Carbon-14 dating) only works on things that were once alive, not rocks and such, and is only useful back about 30k-50k years.

There are, though, very reliable (and a number of) dating methods that are useful back millions to billions of years. That's how the age of the earth is determined.

Here's some info:

http://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/glad-you-asked-how-do-geologists-know-how-old-a-rock-is/

(and yes, it's with more than a little bit of irony that I use a link to a state of Utah source!)

beckyannawesome Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Growing up my mom explained away carbon dating by
> saying God collected pieces to create Earth from
> all over the universe so the actual rocks might
> be older than the earth itself. She also claims
> that dinosaur fossils were already embedded in
> said rocks and that they never actually roamed
> this earth because they aren't described in the
> creation story.

That's basically what Joseph Smith claimed, too. Maybe the first ad hoc "explanation" to deal with geologic evidence for an old Earth, available even back in the early 19th century:

“'This earth was organized or formed out of other planets which were broke up and remodeled and made into the one on which we live.'"

https://www.lds.org/manual/old-testament-seminary-teacher-manual/introduction-to-the-book-of-genesis/lesson-8-moses-2-genesis-1-abraham-4?lang=eng


However, when you realize that there are annual layers you can actually count (in lakes, seas, ice sheets, etc.) going back continuously for tens of thousands of years (at least) in which you can find the remains of plants and animals, you have to move to a new level of absurdity to explain away the evidence for death occurring on our Earth for far longer than six thousand years.

One lake in Japan, for example, has been used to calibrate radio-carbon dating by comparing the age of plant remains, as determined by counting the number of annual layers under which the remains are buried beneath the lake bottom, with the plants' measured radio-carbon age:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Suigetsu#Radiocarbon_dating

Here is an excerpt from an email that I sent to a close personal friend that is still in the church. My last remaining church friend. His rebuttal was pure testimony. Out of respect for our friendship, I will only copy and paste my message to my friend to this thread:

"We can see by the fossil record that earth's history is punctuated by many extinctions. The evidence is very strong that life has existed on the earth for a very long time. Yet, latter-day revelation says it isn't so. The LDS church teaches that death was introduced by the fall of Adam. So, which is it?

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/death?lang=eng&letter=d

The church teaches the chronology of things and it is pretty clear. As members, we are not supposed to pick and choose what we believe, we are supposed to believe all of the latter-day revelation. So as the church teaches, there was no death on the earth around 4000 BC? Do you believe this? If so, how can you pick and choose the dogma like that?

https://www.lds.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/gospel-library/manual/00001/old-testament-bookmark_1344149_prt.jpg


This news is out today. We have hiked around Burgess mountain in Yoho National Park. There is just as much life preserved here as what I found in Kentuckian Limestone when I lived in Kentucky. This shows that death was on the earth long before Adam ever existed. If you believe in this kind of thing.

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/ovation-worm-bizarre-new-burgess-shale-species-discovered-on-b-c-guided-hike

Here is Bruce McConkie's opinion:

"My reasoning causes me to conclude that if death has always prevailed in the world, then there was no fall of Adam that brought death to all forms of life; that if Adam did not fall, there is no need for an atonement; that if there was no atonement, there is no salvation, no resurrection, and no eternal life; and that if there was no atonement, there is nothing in all of the glorious promises that the Lord has given us. I believe that the Fall affects man, all forms of life, and the earth itself, and that the Atonement affects man, all forms of life, and the earth itself."

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-r-mcconkie_seven-deadly-heresies/

Members of the church will mock me to scorn with what they know to be "true". I have held the Tuang baby's replica skull in my hands and admired the dentition to not be much different than that of my own children. It was remarkable to see the similarities. I memorized the entire phylogenetic tree of bipedal organisms to study everything from Australopithecus Afarensis up to modern day humans. That's 2.5 million years of our ancestors walking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taung_Child

I told you during our last conversation that I hadn't even touched on the things that really destroy my testimony as taught by the LDS church. You can see above by the definition of "death" what one of my first objections are. I had this issue on my "shelf" for a long time before my shelf fell. It took me only fifteen minutes to compose this email with references after seeing today's Burgess Shale news. I think McConkie is a misinformed gentleman and it is no wonder that he and McKay often argued toe to toe. I just feel like I have been pretending for too long to believe the dogma, despite the mounting scientific evidence.

I am bitter because people laugh that I stayed in the church as long as I did. Then people in the church mock me in the same manner for deciding to leave. I guess that I should exit quietly and keep my feelings to myself. Loved by none, hated by many, just for always searching for the truth.

paisley70 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is Bruce McConkie's opinion:
>
> "My reasoning causes me to conclude that if death
> has always prevailed in the world, then there was
> no fall of Adam that brought death to all forms of
> life; that if Adam did not fall, there is no need
> for an atonement; that if there was no atonement,
> there is no salvation, no resurrection, and no
> eternal life; and that if there was no atonement,
> there is nothing in all of the glorious promises
> that the Lord has given us. I believe that the
> Fall affects man, all forms of life, and the earth
> itself, and that the Atonement affects man, all
> forms of life, and the earth itself."

I'm totally with old Bruce until that last sentence. There's no need for atonement or salvation and all the crap that goes with it.

I love it when you can follow along saying, "uh-huh, uh-huh...I see where you're going with that"; and then seeing Bruce suddenly zig when you could have sworn he was about to zag.

Folks with the young Earth sickness (YES) are at a loss to explain their illness. They most frequently change the subject, but if you press them on the matter, they may come unhinged. In this case they will hysterically claim to understand an imaginary war between deities and demons. Then they'll draw sides. They're with God, so where does that leave the opposition?

Well in my view it's all opinion, I've never had trouble believing that the world is much younger than 45 billion trillion zillion, or whatever scientists are saying these days. What I find difficult to understand is how people can be so convinced of what academia tells them about the age of the earth. Basically it's which fairy tale do you want to believe? take your pick. But that's just my view :^)

poopstone Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well in my view it's all opinion...

It's not. It's fairy tales on the young-earth side, it's facts and evidence on the other.

> I've never had
> trouble believing that the world is much younger
> than 45 billion trillion zillion, or whatever
> scientists are saying these days.

4.55 billion. And while you can believe whatever you want, this isn't a question of belief. The facts are in. That you don't bother to learn them is your issue.

> What I find
> difficult to understand is how people can be so
> convinced of what academia tells them about the
> age of the earth.

"Academia" doesn't tell anybody anything. Science presents facts and evidence. You can check it out yourself...but that would probably be too much work, huh? Shame.

> Basically it's which fairy tale
> do you want to believe? take your pick. But that's
> just my view :^)

It's a sad view, as it's uninformed, ignorant, and false. You're entitled to it...but it's still uninformed, ignorant, and false.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts.

A 6000 year old earth is an opinion, a superstition, a misunderstanding, a delusion, but it's not supported by facts.

Dude, you have an IQ of like 75 or something, don't you?

Don't present facts as opinions. Go away, 'poopstone.'

This must be one of those parodies badass wrote about. Yeah, nuclear decay is poorly understood and nuclear science is a fairy tale. Just don't tell the folks from Hiroshima.

Sadly, it's not. :(

It's 13,000 years old if you include the 7,000 years it took to evolve all the animals, plants and fungii.

Unfortunately, I used to believe in what I now know as Young Earth Creationism :( Then one day I tried to work out how exactly those scientists got it so wrong, only to discover that the science of radiometric dating is literally rock solid. Bye bye testimony.

How was I to know that scientists had already thought of every objection I knew of, plus many more? How was I to know that they would have accounted for those objections in their calculations? It turns out that scientists are actually very clever, which was a bit surprising at first, but also a bit obvious.

The Invisible Green Potato Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How was I to know that scientists had already
> thought of every objection I knew of, plus many
> more? How was I to know that they would have
> accounted for those objections in their
> calculations? It turns out that scientists are
> actually very clever, which was a bit surprising
> at first, but also a bit obvious.

:)

Whenever a scientist publishes results of observations or experiments or measurements, other scientists do their best to rip it to shreds. Brutally, mercilessly, relentlessly. That's not mean or anything, it's how the biases, bad ideas, and unsupportable claptrap get weeded out. What survives is usually quite reliable. And if some bias/mistake sneaks through that process, somebody will find it later.

The Claim:

http://astrobiosociety.org/has-the-speed-of-light-been-broken/



The Explanation:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/11/neutrinos_not_faster_than_light/

http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/the-data-that-threatened-to-break-physics

Science isn't like religion where you can set up you own belief system and make up whatever you want.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/2017 01:31AM by anybody.

I bear testimony that D&C 77:6 teaches this. Its a sacred doctrine of the Church. If it wasn't then it certainly would not be in the Doctrine & Covenants.

Your quoting of D&C scriptures gets on my nerves. What we need to do to keep everyone in the Church is just put out some very long document with thousands of footnotes. In the preface and conclusion we have to emphasize the importance of people not wasting their time on this issue because the smart scientists (such as people like Daniel C. Peterson) have it all under control.

Now these are two parodies following each other it could be the same guy talking to himself.

Yah, well, here is the thing. Things that sounded really brilliant at BYU education week and in MORmON priestDUD meeting often sound totally ABSURD and STUPID when presented in more conventional forums to more normal audiences. "Brother Packer said so" really does NOT constitute any kind of legitimate explanation or verification.

People, you're being to literal with Biblical Literalism. Don't you know that the word literal, literally doesn't mean literal anymore?

: in effect : virtually —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible

will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins

Most of the members that see themselves as successfully reconciling science and their belief take the view that all of science behind evolution is correct(ish). But at some point in the evolution of humanity, there was an "Adam & Eve" moment, and that is when spirits started entering human bodies. Before then, the "no death" spoken of is spiritual death - since we hadn't been separated from God yet - which is the mormon definition. God kicked off the "process" with the big bang, or whatever...

Quite a bit of a stretch...