DINOSAUR DISCUSSION 4
Which one is it?
Can your eternal destiny depend on deciding between two choices?
So I remember quite a few years ago an older retired minister proposed the question:
Suppose you get to the end of your life and your entry into eternity consists of answering an examination paper.
So you sit there, look at the paper, open it up, and it consists of one question.
Just one question.
And there on the page are two examples which you have to read, and then make a decision.
The examples are outlining some activities of something Bible related.
One is the real case, and the other is a counterfeit.
In this case they are outlining some activities of supposedly the Holy Spirit.
You then have to decide, which one is the real Holy Spirit?
That's it. Just one question. Which one is the true, and which one is the false?
Doesn't seem like a hard question.
Or is it?
How do you think you would go?
OK about now someone is wondering just what in the world has this got anything to do with dinosaurs?
That comes in on the final example. And it's pretty climactic.
So keep reading.
Example 2
This one's pretty scary as it will actually impact EVERYONE alive on this planet when it happens.
There's been a lot of discussion among Christians that Jesus is supposed to be coming back to this world one day.
And sure enough suppose one day some majestic being turns up looking just like Jesus.
Well it has to be Jesus, doesn't it?
Suppose this being utters some of the same gracious truths that Jesus uttered when he was here before? Must be Jesus, right?
And he heals people. Jesus healed people. So it must be Jesus.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Unfortunately there is an enemy of God who would probably be happy to play this game and take as many people with him as he can. Down the plughole.
And it says in the Bible this enemy has power to deceive the whole world. And if it were possible, even God's elect.
So this enemy has some ability to counterfeit even the Second Coming. Maybe not exactly, but close enough to catch a lot of people off guard.
Two decisions. Is this the real Christ or a counterfeit?
There it is again. One question.
Is this the real Christ or a counterfeit?
How do you think you would go?
Example 3.
This one's pretty scary too as we are right in the middle of this one.
Most Christians believe that the Bible is the word of the living God and outlines a path for us to follow on our walk to eternity.
I've even had a friend tell me that one acronym for the Bible is:
Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth
Pretty much to the point. For Christians. And not to be ignored.
And sure, the Bible is much much more than this, but it is a fun acronym that someone somewhere came up with.
And it still is good advice.
But what if in this world we just couldn't believe what we were seeing?
And we now have come to a time with AI where some deceptions are occurring and catching a lot of people out.
But what about the world itself?
What if there were some things that just do not agree with the Bible and we are in fact being told they are the truth and the Bible is just plain wrong?
The scientists in this world.
Well it's clear that the Bible is not a scientific textbook.
BUT
There are some things that can very simply be determined. Approximately.
Many people have looked at the Bible genealogies and chronologies and tracked this back to the opening books of the Bible. And it doesn't matter how you do this. Unless you reinterpret some time periods to mean something else. Which a lot of people do.
But taking a simplistic approach, basically you get something like approximately 6,000 years from the recorded Creation to our time.
From the Creation?
That means the Earth may only be approximately about 6,000 years old.
Well that's pretty much in disagreement with what the leading scientists of our time believe.
They believe it's more than thousands of years old.
Actually more than millions of years old.
Even billions of years old.
From the rocks and meteorites.
But the rocks and meteorites are from the Creation, depending what you believe.
So who's right?
Back to the person sitting the exam paper.
One question.
Two examples given.
The scientists of the world state the age of the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old
AND
Bible chronology suggests the world may only be approximately 6,000 years old.
A simple enough choice.
Or is it?
Which would you choose?
Repercussions for the dinosaurs
If the Earth is only 6,000 years old, what does that do for the dinosaurs?
Where do the dinosaurs come from?
Many Christians believe God made the dinosaurs along with all the other animals.
How do we know about dinosaurs?
From all the fossils.
And where did all these fossils come from?
Most Christians believe they came from the Flood when all the dinosaurs were drowned and deposited in layers, and finally became fossilized.
This also supposedly explains the geological column when all the rock layers were laid down and so we find them today.
There are some problems with both of these views.
According to National Geographic, fossils require a minimum of 10,000 years to form. That is, from the bones that are buried, to fossils, takes a minimum of 10,000 years.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/fossil/
There's a problem. From the fossil of a dinosaur discovered we have to go back 10,000 years to get to its bones. And then some more years to get to the living dinosaur. But if we can only go back 6,000 years to the Creation, we can't get back to the living dinosaur.
That's one problem.
Further it is believed that it actually would take millions of years[1] for the sediment to become an actual layer of solid rock.
So all those rock layers supposedly laid down at the time of the Flood a little over 4,000 years ago would need millions of years to form[1] to what we find today. Which of course is simply impossible.
So all the rock layers we find in the geological column were not laid down at the time of the Flood.
So when were they laid down?
They weren't. If we can only go back 6,000 years what they would look like then is pretty much what they look like now.
In other words, if the Earth came into existence 6,000 years ago, then the rock layers also came into existence then and looked pretty much what they look like today.
With all the dinosaur fossils in them just like what they look like today.
So all these dinosaurs basically came into existence just like they look like today, as fossils in the rocks. Not as fossil remains, but as something else.
This means that none of these dinosaurs ever existed as living breathing creatures at any time in the past.
Something to think about.
REFERENCES
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains, or traces of remains, of ancient animals and plants.
Fossils are not the remains of the organism itself! They are rocks.
A fossil can preserve an entire organism or just part of one. Bones, shells, feathers, and leaves can all become fossils.
Fossils can be very large or very small. Microfossils are only visible with a microscope. Bacteria and pollen are microfossils. Macrofossils can be several meters long and weigh several tons. Macrofossils can be petrified trees or dinosaur bones.
Preserved remains become fossils if they reach an age of about 10,000 years.
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/fossil/
1.
OK an amendment on this. From a youtube video[2] referring to a doc by Scott Dunn about clay depositions says something like "Basic soil mechanics shows that consolidation times for 1000 m-thick clay layers are in the order of millions of years".
So a conclusion is that each rock layer may have taken millions of years to go from sediment to solid rock. That may not be completely correct.
Scott Dunn was discussing clay layers with a lot of water and it was taking a LOT of time for the water to drain out. Also the millions of years time is for 1000 m thick clay layers.
So layers that are not formed from clay and a lot less than 1000 m thick may take a lot less time.
Sure, still a lot of time but maybe less than a million years.
What got me on this track is realizing a lot of megafauna have been found from the Late Pleistocene which supposedly covers between c. 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Pleistocene
Anyway if a lot of fossils have been found from Late Pleistocene rock layers, then these layers couldn't have taken millions of years to form.
Anyway the National Geographic quote suggests that fossils take a minimum of 10,000 years to form so we can take that as possibly the minimum rock layer formation time. [using natural processes of course]
Just some thoughts.
2.
The Mud Problem Precludes Young Earth Creationism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQcQSqH13xU
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Jun 14, 2024
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Stephen Buckley
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