The earth is only 6000 years old.

[Philipp]

That puts you outside the Church.

This is Church Dogma:

1. 
   *] The first man was created by God. (De fide.)
   *] The whole human race stems from one single human pair. (Sent. certa.)
   *] Man consists of two essential parts–a material body and a spiritual soul. (De fide.)
   *] The rational soul is per se the essential form of the body. (De fide.)
   *] Every human being possesses an individual soul. (De fide.)
   *] Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God. (Sent. Certa.)
   *] A creature has the capacity to receive supernatural gifts. (Sent. communis.)
   *] The Supernatural presupposes Nature. (Sent communis.)
   *] God has conferred on man a supernatural Destiny. (De fide.)
   *] Our first parents, before the Fall, were endowed with sanctifying grace. (De fide.)
   *] The donum rectitudinis or integritatis in the narrower sense, i.e., the freedom from irregular desire. (Sent. fidei proxima.)
   *] The donum immortalitatis, i.e.,bodily immortality. (De fide.)
   *] The donum impassibilitatis, i.e., the freedom from suffering. (Sent. communis.)
   *] The donum scientiae, i.e., a knowledge of natural and supernatural truths infused by God. (Sent. communis.)
   *] Adam received sanctifying grace not merely for himself, but for all his posterity. (Sent. certa.)
   *] Our first parents in paradise sinned grievously through transgression of the Divine probationary commandment. (De fide.)
   *] Through the sin our first parents lost sanctifying grace and provoked the anger and the indignation of God. (De fide.)
   *] Our first parents became subject to death and to the dominion of the Devil. (De fide.) D788.
   *] Adam’s sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent. (De fide.)
   *] Original Sin consists in the deprivation of grace caused by the free act of sin committed by the head of the race. (Sent. communis.)
   *] Original sin is transmitted by natural generation. (De fide.)
   *] In the state of original sin man is deprived of sanctifying grace and all that this implies, as well as of the preternatural gifts of integrity. (De fide in regard to Sanctifying Grace and the Donum Immortalitatus. D788 et seq.)
   *] Souls who depart this life in the state of original sin are excluded from the Beatific Vision of God. (De fide.)
   1. The Devil posesses a certain dominion over mankind by reason of Adam’s sin. (De fide.)

1. 
   Thank you Buffalo for that list of 24. Such a list makes it much easier to fully understand our Genesis in light of the latest in scientific discoveries. I will keep these in my files to ensure I do not stray too far. After all neither I nor anyone are justified in trying to tell God when and how The Holy Trinity created. However, forgive me if I missed a previous post but could you explain the importance of so believing in the above list of 24 and why it is important for our children and grandchildren to understand the above when they are taught their Catholic faith?
   
   I do fully believe He is gradually letting us in on some of the hows and whens thanks to recent scientific research, the church fathers and most theologians and then expects us to have a lot of faith for the rest of the unknowns RE his creation. We need the hows and whens in order to keep the record straight on target.

 

[Philipp]

You seem to be doing only C-14 work. Why is this? Most finds are dated using a triangulation (so to speak) of various dating methods available to paleontologists.

Do you deny the existence of, say, the age evidence of meteorites? Of moon rock? Do you deny the existence of a “Jurassic” period?

I and many other teams have compared C-14 dating with the long age methods and found them in dispute to the tune of 50 to 100,000 times too old when compared with C-14 dating or even normal geological studies. I’ve already given many examples. Would you like to see more?

 

[Rsiewell]

Ah – I do that often! I’m preparing a guest lecture for a state university class tomorrow, and have to be careful not to inject too much Catholic theology into it from these and other discussions in which I’m engaged.

Im doing a similiar thing for my highschool on the constitutionality of the death penalty

 

[buffalo]

Thank you Buffalo for that list of 24. Such a list makes it much easier to fully understand our Genesis in light of the latest in scientific discoveries. I will keep these in my files to ensure I do not stray too far. After all neither I nor anyone are justified in trying to tell God when and how The Holy Trinity created. However, forgive me if I missed a previous post but could you explain the importance of so believing in the above list of 24 and why it is important for our children and grandchildren to understand the above when they are taught their Catholic faith?

I do fully believe He is gradually letting us in on some of the hows and whens thanks to recent scientific research, the church fathers and most theologians and then expects us to have a lot of faith for the rest of the unknowns RE his creation. We need the hows and whens in order to keep the record straight on target.

Bottom line - they have been revealed and are true.

These truths provide a compass if you will, an illumination, that helps us with our reasoning in all that we observe. It gives us an understanding that there is more to reality than we can touch, feel and measure. This is base information that we build our understanding of the universe on.

 

[ricmat]

Buffalo, you don’t get out much, do you? The geneticists with whom I work look at claims such as you parrot back from the catechism and just laugh. Why should they take seriously a silly religion that flushes their entire science down the toilet?

It’s sad and its unnecessary. The bishops and priests with whom I’ve worked on issues in science and religion just shake their heads in disbelief when I tell them the things I hear from “creationists” such as yourself. I had a nice visit with Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Poland at the evolution conference last year, and he asked me (and others present) to explain just how creationism has gotten such a hold in America. We explained that it had to do with the peculiar ecclesiastical history of this country.

So now we see to the heart of the matter. StAnastasia can’t stand to be laughed at.

Personally, I’m pretty much a wimp, and were I to be tortured for the faith I’d probably not get anywhere close to “martyr” status. But at least I’d get past the stage of “Stop! Please stop! I can’t stand you laughing at me anymore!!!”

 

[rossum]

I and many other teams have compared C-14 dating with the long age methods and found them in dispute to the tune of 50 to 100,000 times too old when compared with C-14 dating or even normal geological studies. I’ve already given many examples. Would you like to see more?

I have given this analogy before, but it seems worthwhile for me to repeat it.

If I stand on my bathroom scales they register 75 Kg. If I stand on my kitchen scales they register 10 Kg. There is an obvious discrepancy in the measures.

YECs use this discrepancy to argue that I only actually weigh 2 Kg. Others use this discrepancy to argue that I only weigh 4 Kg to 8 Kg. Yet others just use the discrepancy to throw doubt on the reading from the bathroom scales.

Why is there this discrepancy? Because my kitchen scales can only weigh up to 10 Kg. All weights above 10 Kg register as 10 Kg.

Carbon dating is like my kitchen scales, it can only measure a short distance into the past. Other radiometric dating methods are like my bathroom scales, they can measure a lot further into the past.

Carbon dates for very old objects are as spurious as me claiming that I weigh 10 Kg.

Your creationist sources are lying by omission Philipp.

rossum

 

[larkin31]

I and many other teams have compared C-14 dating with the long age methods and found them in dispute to the tune of 50 to 100,000 times too old when compared with C-14 dating or even normal geological studies. I’ve already given many examples. Would you like to see more?

First, what I would rather have is a list of the researchers of that web site you posted the link to. No names or credentials are given, not even whose instruments are used (that I can remember).

Secondly, I would like you to answer rossum’s point, which basically is that C-14 couldn’t give you an older date even when the carbon is older than that.

So I asked, why are you not using the other methods to determine whether the samples are older? And, usually, samples are cross-dated by stratification, other evidence in proximity, other fossils of the same species, geological processes and known time markers, etc. When an object is found to be a gross anomoly, the entire process is usually redone to check all the samples (for contamination) and all the proceeedures and dating methods for accuracy. I don’t see this happening in the description on that web-page, but maybe I missed something.

 

[rossum]

with the Flood occurring around 5,000 BC.

This is contradicted by the available evidence. If the flood happened 7,000 years ago then we should see a genetic bottleneck of one breeding pair about 7,000 years ago in all land tetrapod (reptile, mammal and bird) species. We do not see this so we can be sure from the genetic evidence that this date for a universal flood is incorrect.

Humans have a bottleneck of 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs about 70,000 years ago. Cheetahs have a severe bottleneck possibly as small as a single family about 10,000 years ago and are still showing the effects of greatly reduced genetic diversity. These effects are not seen in most other species.

rossum

 

[Philipp]

I’m interested in the abstracts and journal citations, not third-party hearsay. So, citing Answers in Genesis, et al, doesn’t count.

I suspect that if one is an old earther it won’t make any difference where the references originate as they will not change their minds so if I have a mind to it I will quote AIG or ICR scientists when I think it important for those inclined to realize there is a major controversy on the age question.

References as requested:

(1) C-14 dating of dinosaur bone collagen and bio-apatite has been published in a book by a prodigious Italian government agency, The National Research Council (CNR) entitled “Evolutionism: the decline of an hypothesis”, as noted in an English version of the controversy on “Science Insider”:

blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/12/italy-science-a.html#more

(2) For more specific information go to the following web site for another conference critiquing evolution hypothesis at St. Pius V University in Rome on November 9, 2008 three days after the above media event when the above 260 page book was released to the public. There you can read the abstracts of the link [see top left on home page]:

sites.google.com/site/scientificcritiqueofevolution/Home The conference was successfully held in spite of a major transit strike in Rome on November 9.

**"Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have obviously been created AT ONCE by the One and the same Creator by variation in the DNA structure of each life form. [Simul in latin meaning “at once” in English, from Lateran IV, AD 1215] **

 

[grannymh]

. Why should they take seriously a silly religion that flushes their entire science down the toilet?

Prove it. A lab table alone would clog the drain.

 

[Philipp]

I suspect that if one is an old earther it won’t make any difference where the references originate as they will not change their minds so if I have a mind to it I will quote AIG or ICR scientists when I think it important for those inclined to realize there is a major controversy on the age question.

References as requested:

(1) C-14 dating of dinosaur bone collagen and bio-apatite has been published in a book by a prodigious Italian government agency, The National Research Council (CNR) entitled “Evolutionism: the decline of an hypothesis”, as noted in an English version of the controversy on “Science Insider”:

blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/12/italy-science-a.html#more

(2) For more specific information go to the following web site for another conference critiquing evolution hypothesis at St. Pius V University in Rome on November 9, 2008 three days after the above media event when the above 260 page book was released to the public. There you can read the abstracts of the link [see top left on home page]:

sites.google.com/site/scientificcritiqueofevolution/Home The conference was successfully held in spite of a major transit strike in Rome on November 9.

**"Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have obviously been created AT ONCE by the One and the same Creator by variation in the DNA structure of each life form. [Simul in latin meaning “at once” in English, from Lateran IV, AD 1215] **

 

[larkin31]

I suspect that if one is an old earther it won’t make any difference where the references originate as they will not change their minds so if I have a mind to it I will quote AIG or ICR scientists when I think it important for those inclined to realize there is a major controversy on the age question.

References as requested:

(1) C-14 dating of dinosaur bone collagen and bio-apatite has been published in a book by a prodigious Italian government agency, The National Research Council (CNR) entitled “Evolutionism: the decline of an hypothesis”, as noted in an English version of the controversy on “Science Insider”:

blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/12/italy-science-a.html#more

(2) For more specific information go to the following web site for another conference critiquing evolution hypothesis at St. Pius V University in Rome on November 9, 2008 three days after the above media event when the above 260 page book was released to the public. There you can read the abstracts of the link [see top left on home page]:

sites.google.com/site/scientificcritiqueofevolution/Home The conference was successfully held in spite of a major transit strike in Rome on November 9.

**"Since it has been demonstrated that all living organisms on Earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain that all living organisms have obviously been created AT ONCE by the One and the same Creator by variation in the DNA structure of each life form. [Simul in latin meaning “at once” in English, from Lateran IV, AD 1215] **

The agency that sponsored the event does not support the findings of the book. This is from your link:

While stressing that de Mattei’s book doesn’t reflect CNR’s position on evolution, President Maiani has, in a media statement, defended the vice-president’s right to publish the book, saying: “I’d like to stress both the fact that the intellectual research is an open enterprise, as well as my personal endorsement against any form of censorship. The freedom of expression is guaranteed by the article 21 of [Italy’s] Constitution.”

They printed the book themselves, after Pope Benedict called for opinions from all sides of the debate.

 

[grannymh]

. Why should they take seriously a silly religion that flushes their entire science down the toilet?

Why take religion seriously? Why did Jesus Christ die on the Cross?
There are no words to express the depth of my sadness at such undeserved profanity.

 

[StAnastasia]

Humans have a bottleneck of 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs about 70,000 years ago. Cheetahs have a severe bottleneck possibly as small as a single family about 10,000 years ago and are still showing the effects of greatly reduced genetic diversity. These effects are not seen in most other species. rossum

rossum, I’ve not read the figure of 1,000; I’ve only heard 3,000-10,000 breeding pairs. That’s why the myth of “Adam and Eve” as a single breeding pair from which all humans are descended remains just that.

 

[StAnastasia]

Why take religion seriously? Why did Jesus Christ die on the Cross?
There are no words to express the depth of my sadness at such undeserved profanity.

Granny, my thoughts indeed. I tell them ours is not a silly religion, and that there are many educated Catholics who don’t flush genetic science down the toilet. Still, some long-atheist people are too prejudiced to acknowledge that fact.

 

[Philipp]

I have given this analogy before, but it seems worthwhile for me to repeat it.

If I stand on my bathroom scales they register 75 Kg. If I stand on my kitchen scales they register 10 Kg. There is an obvious discrepancy in the measures.

YECs use this discrepancy to argue that I only actually weigh 2 Kg. Others use this discrepancy to argue that I only weigh 4 Kg to 8 Kg. Yet others just use the discrepancy to throw doubt on the reading from the bathroom scales.

Why is there this discrepancy? Because my kitchen scales can only weigh up to 10 Kg. All weights above 10 Kg register as 10 Kg.

Carbon dating is like my kitchen scales, it can only measure a short distance into the past. Other radiometric dating methods are like my bathroom scales, they can measure a lot further into the past.

Carbon dates for very old objects are as spurious as me claiming that I weigh 10 Kg.

Your creationist sources are lying by omission Philipp.

rossum

Perhaps you need to have your scales recalibrated. They seem to be off by ~50 to100,000 times. As you suggested the RC dates for bone collagen for saber tooth tigers [Smilodon] in the tarpits of LA are reasonable, the RC dates for dinosaur bones which I have posted several times therefore are also reasonable.

Perhaps you just can’t get it off your mind that it is impossible that for all these years you could be wrong. I’m sorry but I can’t help you but maybe if you pray hard to the deity or climb some mountain in Tibet or visit the Ta Prohm temple iln Camboida some wisdom might be imparted.

FOR ALL OTHERS: I have already demonstrated that Rossum et al.'s faith in uniformitarianism is just that–faith–not a scientific conclusion. What is truth? The earth’s magnetic field strength has been steadily declining since measurements began to be taken in the 1800’s. That is a fact. If the earth’s magnetic field was much stronger thousands of years ago, it would have resulted in much less C-14 forming in the atmosphere. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that the C-14 ages that have been recorded for dinosaur bones A) falsify the evolutionary time scale and B) can be reconciled with the traditional chronology of the earth provided by the Holy Scriptures as interpreted by all of the Church Fathers and as affirmed in the Sacred Liturgy. That is the default position for Catholics. The burden of proof is on you–a burden you have not been able to bear.

 

[grannymh]

Granny, my thoughts indeed. I tell them ours is not a silly religion, and that there are many educated Catholics who don’t flush genetic science down the toilet. Still, some long-atheist people are too prejudiced to acknowledge that fact.

In reply to post 857:
Originally Posted by grannymh http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
*Why take religion seriously? Why did Jesus Christ die on the Cross? *
There are no words to express the depth of my sadness at such undeserved profanity.

My sadness is doubled by those educated catholics who give scandal by denying doctrines of Catholicism.

 

[larkin31]

First, what I would rather have is a list of the researchers of that web site you posted the link to. No names or credentials are given, not even whose instruments are used (that I can remember).

Secondly, I would like you to answer rossum’s point, which basically is that C-14 couldn’t give you an older date even when the carbon is older than that.

So I asked, why are you not using the other methods to determine whether the samples are older? And, usually, samples are cross-dated by stratification, other evidence in proximity, other fossils of the same species, geological processes and known time markers, etc. When an object is found to be a gross anomoly, the entire process is usually redone to check all the samples (for contamination) and all the proceeedures and dating methods for accuracy. I don’t see this happening in the description on that web-page, but maybe I missed something.

Phil?

 

[StAnastasia]

My sadness is doubled by those educated catholics who give scandal by denying doctrines of Catholicism.

Granny, I don’t know how you do it. How do you manage to deny reality so thoroughly that even you yourself believe it? I’m just amazed – I stand in awe!

 

[grannymh]

Granny, I don’t know how you do it. How do you manage to deny reality so thoroughly that even you yourself believe it? I’m just amazed – I stand in awe!

The reason that I believe in two sole parents of the human species is that I believe in Divine Revelation as taught by the Catholic Church. That faith is helping me as I research the
Achilles heel off line.

Blessings,
granny

These two websites contain TV ads about Catholicism. The first is from one of the Dioceses which is using them. The second is general information.