Sci Am -- How old is the Earth? Who knows?

[jetson]

Lastly, I have now reviewed dozens of debate threads and numerous pages of debates on this forum and the ones I have looked at are essentially devoid of citations or references to back up any claims made by evolutionists on this site. It appears that this is simply another tactic on your part to ridicule others with beliefs other than your own while not placing the same burdens of proof on yourself. It is ridiculous on an opinion based discussion forum to immediately ridicule people for not citing sources when they are only providing their opinions. Sources come later when the discussion gets more detailed and they are politely requested so people can do further research.

Bullshit.  Get your act together if you're going to spout your creationist lies to the forum members.  You still don't seem to understand that pretty much everything you believe is flat out wrong.  That is your problem, not the forum's problem.  You're not even close to reality in your particular beliefs.

And stop trying to conflate scientific theories with your mythological belief system.  I cannot believe the level of pure crap you want to hoist upon us here.  Yes, I am after you because you are dishonest, and you are not here for a discussion.  You started off by making the claim that Rick Perry doesn't reject science.  And the only way you can be right about that is to show me where Rick Perry accepts the Theory of Evolution as fact, like all scientists do.  You bring me that, and I will back off.

Again, you came to this forum, seemingly to defend creationism, and that's where you went off the rails.  You CANNOT defend creationism without first explaining the god involved, and how it came to be, and how it came to create stuff, and how it came to create the "kinds" that you seem to believe were put here first (while simultaneously asserting that "creation science" does not involve a god).  You have nothing to bring to this discussion, nothing.  And until you do, I won't stop badgering you to step up and prove your views with facts and evidence.

By the way, you claim to have read dozens of threads.  Good for you.  But dozens of threads is a fart in a hurricane compared to the number of threads and citations, as well as well supported information shared by other members. 

When creationist liars come to this forum, it gets under my skin.  And while I am generally not motivated to go after new members, this thread is an example of a time where I will not sit by and watch while you parrot the lies of utterly failed ideas born of mythological origins, from a cobble of books written thousands of years ago, before humans realized that they were on a planet in space. 

Lastly, if I may be slightly more courteous to you, here is a link to a site that completely destroys your particular creationist views, and these people are good Christians, like you.  They use as much "science" as they can possibly use in order to prop up their belief that the creator is behind it all.

http://www.reasons.org/

[Chronos]

He also paints a very inaccurate picture of the number of global warming “skeptics”. In fact, the number of scientists represented in a UN report refuting global warming is a dozen times larger than the number that authored the original paper that started the controversy.

Since you have this information, please provide an exhaustive list of those who support "climate change" and those who refute it.

I stated I would not reply to abusive posts, but I’ll make an exception in hypagoga’s case to make a point because his response is so similar to nearly all of the responses I’ve seen so far.

My post was not abusive. Neither did you address my point that you made generalized disparaging remarks, but you also failed to respond to my request to produce the data you say you have (or wish to act like you have). I guess it is easier to respond to abusive posts than to respond to ones that are asking sincere questions for easily held data that you could give to support your own remarks.

In addition, simply because you cite a source, that makes you correct?

No, especially if you cite the wrong source or one that is not relevant to the point made. However, not citing any source at all is ...

How absolutely absurd!

Yes, indeed!   So, why do you do it?

In a reasonable discussion or debate, it is the quality of the arguments and education of the participants that matter, not how many sources you can cite or how often you can use that as an excuse not to face the facts.

Are you talking about us, or you?

Not all of us here are scientists, so it is perfectly acceptable to rely on the expertise of others.

But, I thought you didn't like us to quote sources other than ourselves?

... you have never even looked at the creationist research.

Creationism is not science. It's not even history. It cannot equate to research. It equates to creating stories to fit predefined beliefs. Creationism and research are mutually exclusive concepts.

To demonstrate the fallacy of some of the evolutionist claims you cite, in a future post (and probably most appropriate in a new thread) I’ll take one of those claims and dissect it in detail.

Could you just respond to the request I made? Please provide the exhaustive list.  Please?  Pretty please?

Lastly, it is the opinion of the majority of Americans that the creationist arguments are the ones that are so “overwhelming” that they need not be repeated continually.

It is your opinion that it is the majority opinion. Otherwise, please provide the results of an exhaustive poll.

[hypagoga]

I stated I would not reply to abusive posts, but I’ll make an exception in hypagoga’s case to make a point because his response is so similar to nearly all of the responses I’ve seen so far. Do you people really think a valid argument consists of ad hominem attacks?

I think you need to learn what ad hominem means, but if it makes you feel any better, I DO think you're an idiot (more likely a poe).

[hypagoga]

None of this should be all that surprising though.  Atheism, contrary to what you might have heard in sermons or apologetic courses, is not a worldview.  It is a single belief.  To be sure, it is a belief that can inform a worldview. 

Minor quibble. Atheism is not even remotely a belief. I'm sure in this case it's a lapsus, but so many christians think it is a "positive belief in the absence of god", while that really is not the case. It is a simple lack of belief - no more significant than a lack of belief in leprechauns or unicorns. There is also nothing about atheism that espouses any particular worldview.

[Ambassador Pony]

I think it's fair, given Timo's purpose. If you're talking to Koko the talking gorilla, you use sign language. If you're talking to a creationist you have to use some less than reality-based verbiage.

Timo's communicating.

[hypagoga]

I think it's fair, given Timo's purpose. If you're talking to Koko the talking gorilla, you use sign language. If you're talking to a creationist you have to use some less than reality-based verbiage.

Timo's communicating.

Point taken. 

[voodoo child]

Another marionette. 

Good morning raisemeup. I don't post too much here, to be honest with you I am not much of a writer and I am pretty good at even pissing other atheists off for my simplistic explanations, my poor typing skills and my bad jokes.    Let me humbly help you cut some of those strings so firmly affixed.

Sorry to burst yer bubble but evolution is no longer a theory, it is a fact.
Evolution does not have an agenda. Creationist do.

Our planet is over 4.5 billion years old, which is an accepted fact by any rational scientist. 
At this moment in time this planet and everything on it is evolving.
There are several new species of ocean mammals. There are new species of humans, cats, dogs, birds, plants. Some of this evolution was even sped up and manipulated by humans. Look at dogs for example. Common ancestor wolf .   

Creationist rebuttal, if humans are common ancestors of apes how come no apes have changed into humans?   Because they evolved right along side of us at the same time, they had a common ancestor as well.

What I think the real problem that creationist's have with evolution is, sex and the need for more of it.
Something has to die and something has to be born in order for it to evolve.
The kind of changes that you would like to see, to be convinced, is something none of us can see, because we simply do not live long enough.  Luckily, new fossils get dug up every day and another piece of the puzzle is revealed.   

god, is an unknown concept of reality. 

Great thread folks I love a good read. 

   

[jaimehlers]

“Evolutionary Theory” certainly encompasses comets! If you don’t think so, it is your mistake, not mine. You need only look at the world book encyclopedia to recognize that “evolutionary theory” encompasses all of the various evolutionary theories that have been put forth to explain the origin of the universe and everything in it by purely materialistic processes. Biological evolution obviously deals only with living organisms and depending on which sources you use sometimes includes abiogenesis and sometimes does not. In that regard, I don’t care which you choose as long as the comparison with creation theory is consistent. People often refer to biological evolution as simply “evolution”, but not always.

You are conflating the definition of the word 'evolution'[1] and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which referred specifically to the evolution of biological organisms via the mechanism of "survival of the fittest".  The fact that you did not even realize that an article titled "Evolution of the Sun" (to pick one that I got from inputting 'evolution' as a search term in the World Book Encyclopedia) has nothing to do with evolutionary theory is a dead giveaway that you haven't actually given more than a cursory study of the subject that you are busy deriding.  The fact that someone refers to the evolution of the universe, the solar system, the sun, etc, does not mean that they are talking about actual evolutionary theory, or that they are referring to "theories of evolution", and you cannot hope to be taken seriously if you don't get that.

Now if we exclude abiogenesis as most evolutionist are prone to do (since it cannot be explained), biological evolution states that all the diversity of life we see today arose from a common ancestor billions of years ago primarily thorough the processes of mutations and natural selection. Contrary to Jetsons ridiculous and overused characterization of creationism as “God did it”, biological creation theory simply states that the diversity of life we see today arose from a set of original KINDS thousands of years ago primarily through the process of mutations, natural selection and genetic programming. In fact biological creation theory is a purely scientific concept which says absolutely nothing about God. It does not include the creation of the initial Kinds by God just as biological evolution does not include the “creation” of the initial life form from inanimate matter.

The reason abiogenesis is excluded from the theory of evolution is because it does not actually have anything in particular to do with evolutionary theory.  It's a possible explanation of how life originated on Earth.  It is immaterial to evolutionary theory, which is only concerned with what happened once life came about.  You are completely incorrect that abiogenesis "cannot be explained", because it can be explained quite easily.  It may not be an explanation that you are willing to accept, but that is not at all the same thing as your baseless claim about it not being explainable.

As for your statement about "biological creation theory" not being because "God did it", kindly don't assume that the people you're talking to are stupid enough to fall for that kind of sophistry.  It may not include the initial creation that you believe in, but it absolutely depends on it having happened due to a 'creator' who just happened to be able to put all the 'kinds' of life on Earth within a few days.  You may not be literally saying "God did it", but "biological creation theory" doesn't work without a 'creator', so it basically depends on God having done it, unlike evolutionary theory, which doesn't depend on abiogenesis, panspermia, or any other theory to work.

Creation theory uses exactly the same evidence, scientific methods and testing that evolution does. This is one reason I referred to Astreja’s brother as doing research into creation theory. We have never observed evolutionary change occurring. The kind of change we observe is not capable of changing one kind of creature into another kind. We are simply observing change within a kind completely consistent with creation theory. None of the work on anti-biotic resistance relies in any way on the notion that a dinosaur supposedly turned into a bird. They use operational science in the present which could have just as well been done by a creation scientist (and much of it probably is) in complete agreement and consistency with creation theory.

I have no doubt that "biological creation theory" mostly uses the same evidence and methodology, because it would not be convincing in the slightest if it did not.  But that doesn't mean all that much, because it wouldn't have any chance of being convincing if it did not use them.  You claim we haven't observed evolutionary change occurring, yet you ignore the fact that it would take thousands of generations for us to observe it.  We don't see bacterial evolution until thousands of generations have passed; if we measured that in human generations, that would be tens of thousands of years at the minimum.  We've been scientifically observing this stuff for a couple of hundred years at the most, yet you act like the fact that we haven't seen it happen means that it can't be true.

And the other thing that you don't get is that the basics of your "biological creation theory"[2] are actually incorporated in evolutionary theory.  Evolution isn't really about transforming one species into another, no matter what you might have heard; it's about how species develop and change.  What you don't get is that a species that diversifies enough will cease to be able to mate with members of that species that are too different.  We already almost have that with various dog breeds; if we had an island somewhere with only Chihuahuas and Great Danes, they would likely be considered different species because they've diversified too much to interbreed.  That's how new species come about.  That's evolution.

1.	A process of change in a certain direction, Merriam-Webster Dictionary
2.	How species change and diversify.

[Timo]

Minor quibble. Atheism is not even remotely a belief. I'm sure in this case it's a lapsus, but so many christians think it is a "positive belief in the absence of god", while that really is not the case. It is a simple lack of belief - no more significant than a lack of belief in leprechauns or unicorns. There is also nothing about atheism that espouses any particular worldview.

I think we're just talking about semantics at this point.[1]  I don't really see why it should be so offensive to take the proposition that "there is not any good reason to believe that a god exists" or however you'd like to phrase it and call that a belief. 

And I'd have to disagree with you in that the lack of a belief in leprechauns or unicorns is just not comparable to atheism if we're talking about their implications for our respective worldviews.  This is because for a good number of people,, theism is the basis of their worldview.  For these people, removing theism from the equation obviously has huge implications.  This shouldn't seem so strange to most of us.  A lot of us came from a religious background and a hard time dealing with what we thought the implications of our atheism might be.

To be sure, I agree that no worldview follows from atheism but I don't agree with the claim that it has no influence on how we think about things.


Peace

1.	But where would atheists be without quibbling and nitpicking?  Probably church.

[hypagoga]

Minor quibble. Atheism is not even remotely a belief. I'm sure in this case it's a lapsus, but so many christians think it is a "positive belief in the absence of god", while that really is not the case. It is a simple lack of belief - no more significant than a lack of belief in leprechauns or unicorns. There is also nothing about atheism that espouses any particular worldview.

I think we're just talking about semantics at this point.[1]  I don't really see why it should be so offensive to take the proposition that "there is not any good reason to believe that a god exists" or however you'd like to phrase it and call that a belief. 

And I'd have to disagree with you in that the lack of a belief in leprechauns or unicorns is just not comparable to atheism if we're talking about their implications for our respective worldviews.  This is because for a good number of people,, theism is the basis of their worldview.  For these people, removing theism from the equation obviously has huge implications.  This shouldn't seem so strange to most of us.  A lot of us came from a religious background and a hard time dealing with what we thought the implications of our atheism might be.

To be sure, I agree that no worldview follows from atheism but I don't agree with the claim that it has no influence on how we think about things.


Peace

1.	But where would atheists be without quibbling and nitpicking?  Probably church.

Sorry, but I don't see this as a semantic point. Dogma and belief are something that christians throw out as an accusation when talking about atheists - and of course it is nonsense. Atheism is the simple lack of belief in a deity or deities. A *positive belief in the nonexistence of a deity* is in no way implicit to atheism. Sure, an atheist can have that belief, no problem.

As for the unicorn/leprechaun - I see no difference in disbelieving in unicorns, leprechauns, deities (of any sort), santa claus, fairies, mermaids, etc. They are all just things for which there is no evidence that have no reason to be invoked to explain anything about the world. It seems you think the christian god gets this "special place" (i.e., separate from the unicorn) is that some people buy into it or have previously bought into it? If so, I disagree - it is just like santa claus - a former belief that you've shed as you gained more knowledge about the world. Nothing special.

Regarding your last sentence - the "no influence" thing. You agreed that atheism has no implicit world view. That much is straight. However, I think you're mixing something up in the second half of the sentence. There is no implicit influence of atheism on how we think about things. It may have influence on the individual, sure, but there is nothing about atheism itself that influences someone any more than their being influenced by their disbelief in leprechauns. god, like leprechauns and unicorns, simply don't need to be invoked to explain anything, so they all sit in the same boat.

[jaimehlers]

Sorry, but I don't see this as a semantic point. Dogma and belief are something that christians throw out as an accusation when talking about atheists - and of course it is nonsense. Atheism is the simple lack of belief in a deity or deities. A *positive belief in the nonexistence of a deity* is in no way implicit to atheism. Sure, an atheist can have that belief, no problem.

With all due respect, I think you're missing his point.  Certainly, the lack of belief in something is not itself a belief, but the belief in the lack of something is one.  The reason it's a semantic point is because some atheists are like you describe; they simply don't believe in deities and don't worry about it for the most part.  But other atheists go beyond that and actively challenge the beliefs of others in order to cause them to stop believing[1].  I am not saying that they're wrong (or right) in doing so, but whatever terminology one might use to describe it, it has the practical effect of being like dogma and belief.  So you're right that it's not implicit to the basic statement of atheism, but it does exist in certain forms of atheism.  And that's why it's a semantic point, because if some atheists have it, but others don't, then you have to be careful in how you define it.

1.	To convert them to atheism, for lack of a better term.

[hypagoga]

Sorry, but I don't see this as a semantic point. Dogma and belief are something that christians throw out as an accusation when talking about atheists - and of course it is nonsense. Atheism is the simple lack of belief in a deity or deities. A *positive belief in the nonexistence of a deity* is in no way implicit to atheism. Sure, an atheist can have that belief, no problem.

With all due respect, I think you're missing his point.  Certainly, the lack of belief in something is not itself a belief, but the belief in the lack of something is one.  The reason it's a semantic point is because some atheists are like you describe; they simply don't believe in deities and don't worry about it for the most part.  But other atheists go beyond that and actively challenge the beliefs of others in order to cause them to stop believing[1].  I am not saying that they're wrong (or right) in doing so, but whatever terminology one might use to describe it, it has the practical effect of being like dogma and belief.  So you're right that it's not implicit to the basic statement of atheism, but it does exist in certain forms of atheism.  And that's why it's a semantic point, because if some atheists have it, but others don't, then you have to be careful in how you define it.

1.	To convert them to atheism, for lack of a better term.

The bolded was not what I was saying at all. As for myself, I am not in the "don't worry about it for the most part" camp. I actively challenge belief in a deity/deities, but not because of a positive belief in something that is nonfalsifiable. I find existence of deities to be an irreconcilably unfounded premise, but there is neither dogma nor belief that applies. In other words, there is no reason that I, or anyone, should invoke the supernatural to explain anything about the world. I think it is detrimental to invoke such nonsense.

Regarding the world view issue, I agree loss of faith can profoundly change your view of reality (compared to the theist). That isn't even arguable. However, think of it this way - regardless of whether you were born into it and lived it for 40 years, religion was the thing the was a "definer", a "lens". Upon losing faith, that artificial definition/lens is removed, leaving you "empty" of that definition and without glasses. That doesn't mean the loss of definition becomes the new definition. At that point, it becomes the same as the unicorn-non-believer or the santa-claus-non-believer. Yes, it is a big deal to lose the theististic lens and definition, but as I see it, this loss doesn't become a new definition or lens. kwim? It just is one of the many things you don't believe. Yes, you are profoundly changed from what you were, but I just don't see it as a new lens - it is more the removal of a lens.

[Timo]

Peace

Let me put it like this.  I would define atheism as basically being a lack of a belief in any god or something along those lines.  Where I would disagree with you is that, even if we define it in this way, it's still a belief--the belief being that there is not enough evidence to conclude that a god exists.  And in any case, I don't see this as an important point of contention or something that we should be overly concerned about.  The gap between atheism, and even positive, assertive atheism and religious dogma is pretty fucking vast.

With respect to the implications of atheism, I would say that I can see where you're coming from and basically agree with you in that I don't think that there's anything about atheism in particular that lends itself to any particular world view or moral system.  (I'm fond of reminding people in conversation that both Karl Marx and Ayn Rand were atheists.)  However, we live in a world where a significant number of people adhere to god-based moral systems and subscribe to god-based worldviews.  To compare god then to unicorns or Santa Clause just strikes me as willfully ignoring this fact.  No one ever thought the foundations of morality was crumbling before them because Santa doesn't really know when they're asleep.

But whatever.  This is all kind of beside the point.  And I'm not even sure how much it's worth going back and forth here since I mostly agree with you.


Peace

[Ambassador Pony]

Timo, you need to limit yourself ot one "peace" per post. Don't book-end.

Peace

[Timo]

Peace Pony.  You can have like your opinion or whatever and that's peace.  But I'm a do me.  Feel me?  Aight, peace.

[hypagoga]

Peace

Let me put it like this.  I would define atheism as basically being a lack of a belief in any god or something along those lines.  Where I would disagree with you is that, even if we define it in this way, it's still a belief--the belief being that there is not enough evidence to conclude that a god exists.  And in any case, I don't see this as an important point of contention or something that we should be overly concerned about.  The gap between atheism, and even positive, assertive atheism and religious dogma is pretty fucking vast.

With respect to the implications of atheism, I would say that I can see where you're coming from and basically agree with you in that I don't think that there's anything about atheism in particular that lends itself to any particular world view or moral system.  (I'm fond of reminding people in conversation that both Karl Marx and Ayn Rand were atheists.)  However, we live in a world where a significant number of people adhere to god-based moral systems and subscribe to god-based worldviews.  To compare god then to unicorns or Santa Clause just strikes me as willfully ignoring this fact.  No one ever thought the foundations of morality was crumbling before them because Santa doesn't really know when they're asleep.

But whatever.  This is all kind of beside the point.  And I'm not even sure how much it's worth going back and forth here since I mostly agree with you.


Peace

I'm following what your saying, and I think we are in essential agreement. My irritation on the subject comes from the religious who gleefully point to atheism as a positive belief like any religion, just as dogmatic, etc., and use it as an accusation of hypocrisy. And I just don't see it as being the case. Atheists come in all stripes with respect to what they "believe", but I just don't see disbelief (the sole core of atheism) as being equivalent to a positive belief in a nonfalsifiable concept (which is essentially what religion is). I think that positive belief is a separate thing from atheism, although it may follow from it. Although I understand that christianity has had major influence on the world, I really don't see that as justifying special consideration with respect to it's god any more than zeus (which had similar influence in it's time) or the tooth fairy.

As far as being worth going back and forth - I don't see it as hurting anything. I'm not trying to be argumentative. I think there are some points that are worth discussing, at least to see different perspectives.

[RaymondKHessel]

Awww. Well.. It seems old whas-his-face has buggered off. 

Here I really thought he was building up to unload some serious references and citations on us to back up all his glorious and holy trufs.

Apparently, that's not going to happen. Now he's gone. No "Goodbye", no lipstick messages written on the bathroom mirror... nothing?

He didn't even bother to drop an "I'll pray for you."!!!

WTF, man!? I *needed* that prayer. It could have been the one to make all the difference! The one that would finally turn my black-and-white world of anger and soulless self-loathing into one bursting with color and Glory and little parakeets that come to alite on my shoulder while tweeting their happy little bird hymns.

I could have had a fistful of Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven... An eternity spent feasting on his flesh and guzzling his blood... But now, because the one prayer that truly mattered was never offered to the lord on high, I'm doomed to the fiery pits of Satan's Rapey BBQ forever.

Dr. Hef-a-Lump or whatever the f**k couldn't even say the words, "I'll pray for you", let alone do the deed.

Pfft. What a dick. 

[Ivellios]

Yeah, with all his extensive proof you would have thopught he woud be more than thrilled to show proof that his truth is the correct truth[1].

He didn't do the "I'll pray for you!?" That's like Christianity 101, no more like pre-Christianity, along with, "God Bless you!" That's so instinctual, to snub us like that... man.

We're so doomed! Doomed! Doomed to the firey depths of Hell! AAARGH!

To know that he was going to pray for us, just might have made all the difference, but... now the despair! Oh noes!

 

1.	I hope I'm not getting him confused with the 'other' one.

[Historicity]

He didn't even bother to drop an "I'll pray for you."!!!

WTF, man!? I *needed* that prayer.

Agree.  That was cold, man, cold.  I mean that's a common courtesy.

Let me pray for you, instead:

O, Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, if I have done anything worthy in Thy sight do not bless me but bless Thy son, Raymond, as Thou hast in the past, do so in the future with more good zingers.

Well, there's no scientific proof that there is no god Minerva/Athena.  Science has disproven Jupiter and Vulcan but not Minerva. 

So, Minerva has been silent for a couple thousand years?  She works in mysterious ways.

She doesn't show herself not even her divine ankles nor grab you by the hair?  (Those are incidents in the Iliad.) She wants you to seek wisdom on your own to strengthen you.

Scientists deny the existence of Minerva?  All scientists prove the existence of Minerva no matter how much they deny it.  If you presuppose that wisdom comes from Minerva then any display of wisdom proves the existence of Minerva.  If a scientist points out the evidence against Minerva, he is showing wisdom, so ironically he is proving Minerva.  If you presuppose otherwise you are just prejudiced.

Neurology disproves Minerva?  Not all brain functions have been mapped.  Much of how thought occurs is unknown.  Since we don't know all of it, you can't prove we will know all of it.  Therefore Minerva is real.

I hereby declare Minerva to be the Goddess of the Gaps.

[Ambassador Pony]

Peace Pony.  You can have like your opinion or whatever and that's peace.  But I'm a do me.  Feel me?  Aight, peace.

You, sir, have awoken a sleeping giant.

[nogodsforme]

You two need to get a room.

[mrbiscoop]

3 Days 6 hours+ and on reply.

[jetson]

He did say he would be away for awhile.  Patience everyone!

[kardula]

Here's the video of the incident.

Rick Perry may be an dumbass creationist ... but I can't say I approve of a mother using her son that way. She was repeatedly instructing her son to "Ask him about evolution", "Ask him why he doesn't believe in science". Not cool. She can ask him herself, don't use kids.

I think that if an adult asked him the question it would come off more confrontational and he would likely refuse to answer at all.

[rickymooston]

I think that if an adult asked him the question it would come off more confrontational and he would likely refuse to answer at all.

He may have also just been pandering to his base. The mother was using her kid.

[Chronos]

He did say he would be away for awhile.  Patience everyone!

Conveniently so ...

[Anfauglir]

A quick "bump" on this question as I think it's relevant:

Evolution attempts to understand ONE-TIME events in the distant past which have NEVER been observed......

Yahweh's creation of the world....would that not also count as "ONE-TIME events in the distant past which have NEVER been observed" and should therefore be subject to the same scrutiny and caveats that you would apply to evolution and dating of the Earth?

1) Accurate eyewitness accounts.......

Okay - I'm intrigued.  Looking at my Bible, I see that the Earth (with division of land and water, and addition of plants and animals), and the sun and moon.....were all created BEFORE any human being was created.  Even assuming Genesis 1 is accurate, can you explain where the "eyewitness accounts" of the creation of the world come from?

2) Supernovas – According to astronomical observations, a supernova occurs, on average, every 25 years in our galaxy.

As AoB said....50 years¹ - but please cite your source for this figure.

A Supernova first explodes (stage 1), then expands rapidly for about 120,000 years (stage 2) ....

Okay, just going to stop you there, just to check some assumptions. 
First off, the Speed of Light.  When we look at the night sky, we don't see the stars as they are now - we see them as they were in the past.  At best, around 3 or 4 years ago, but potentially hundreds of thousands of years ago.  I'm presuming that you are happy that the speed of light in vacuum is a constant, and that it has not altered dramatically over the last few thousand years?

In fact, we observe only 200 such supernova remnants,

I'm presuming also that you are assuming that every quarter of every part of the sky has been completely and throughly examined and catalogued?  And that you agree that the apparatus used to locate and classify supernovae has been at the same high level of accuracy throughout the time it took to catalogue the entire sky?  In other words, that the entire sky has been scanned with equipment capable of detecting remnants that are hundreds of thousands of light-years away?

If the galaxy is 6-7000 years old, then we should observe about 268 remnants.....

Indeed.  One of the remnants we observe is SN 1987A, measured at approximately 168,000 light-years distance².  (Again, happy to see your source)  But....if everything was created just 7,000 years ago, how could that possibly be?  (c.f. my earlier point regarding the speed of light).  How do you account for the fact that one of the remnants used to support your 7,000 year old universe is far too old to have ever existed?³

Final question: is the rate of formation of supernavae constant, and did they start to form "right at the beginning" (so that the first supernova happen during Year One?  Or does the rate of formation vary with the age of the star and its magnitude, so that none could begin to form until a certain point in their lifecycle had been reached?  If every star has the same lifecycle, should not every star have gone nova at exactly the same day, given they were all created on the same day?


¹ http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Integral/SEMACK0VRHE_0.html
² http://heritage.stsci.edu/1999/04/fast_facts.html
³ It is, of course, entirely possible that the age of the earth, and the age of the universe, are two entirely different things, which would allow for stars to be created thousands or millions of years before the earth was, to give them "time" to reach supernova status.  But....that would contradict the literal 7-day telling in Genesis, of course.  No problem with that in and of itself....but, of course, if those literal seven days were NOT literally seven days, then the 7,000 year calculation taken from the creation of Adam therefore will relate ONLY to the time man has spent on the Earth.  Once you have discarded the literal 7 days of creation, you can no longer say that Adam to now being 7,000 years still means that Adam to now plus one "Biblical creation week" is still just a hair over 7,000 years. 

A big problem, I think, if you want to simultaneously assert "eyewitnesses of creation" (see top though) AND a constant speed of light.  But maybe you don't?

[jaimehlers]

Yes, indeed.  One of the things that really gets me is the young-earth creationist statement that the universe is only a little bit older than known human history.  Even leaving aside all the other stuff they say, the sheer egotism of this statement, and subsequent attempts to refute demonstrable evidence for a much older universe, is astounding.

[Historicity]

RaiseMeUp said we don't spend enough time studying creationism.  He has a point.  We don't monitor some of their memes that they popularize. 

We're all wondering WTF RaiseMeUp meant about accurate eyewitness accounts of creation confirmed by archeologists.  To us that's gibberish.  But I googled and got this:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html

Creationists ultimately date the Earth historically using the chronology of the Bible. This is because they believe that this is an accurate eyewitness account of world history, which bears the evidence within it that it is the Word of God, and therefore totally reliable and error-free.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2006/06/23/feedback-bible-gods-eyewitness-history

We often claim that God is an eyewitness to His creative acts and has given us an eyewitness account in His Word, the Bible. This is logical.
...
Not to mention the OT has time and again been supported by archaeological discoveries, i.e., Jericho, the Hittites, Hazor (mentioned in Joshua 11:10) and David. But we would expect this sort of supporting evidence since the Bible records the true, historical eyewitness account of God.

This is the old "The Bible says that God is real and the Bible is truthful.  We know the Bible is truthful because it was written by God."  This circular proof is really embarrassing so it has been rephrased with "eyewitness" and "archeology".