EUROPEANS WARNED OF THE "DANGERS OF CREATIONISM"

[kiwigeo]

Kiwigeo,

You're right. A few definitions would definitely help at this point.

Science = an attempt to understand the natural world. Using whatever terms are necessary to fully and completely explain life, the universe, and everything. (42?)

Religion = the worst thing to afflict mankind in it's entire history. At it's best its simply a money making machine (just look at Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard himself said that the best way to make money is to create a religion). At its worst it is mans attempt to justify atrocities.

Some corrections to your definitions Joel. As Ive already stated, Science is an attempt to understand the natural world IN NATURALISTIC TERMS. The last three words are the most important words in the definition.

Religion originated because people without science wanted a way of understanding the world around them and the best and simplest explanation they could come up with was that it was all created and put there as is by a creator.

Science and Religion are similar only in their end aims...to attempt to understand the world around us. How they get there is along totally diametrically opposed paths.

Scientology isnt by definition a religion. Its a cult....because its leader was a mortal human being not a supernatural being. Its only called itself a religion purely to get out of paying tax in the US and Australia.

The amount of time that Geologists maintain is required for geological processes to operate over is not a pure assumption. Its based on some fairly sound science. For example we know that hydrocarbons must have formed over a long period of time (millions of years) because they are the result of chemical processes that are in turn controlled by very well known laws and equations. The rate of a chemical reaction can be expressed using the Arrhenius Equation. Two important inputs into the equation are time and temperature. If you plug in times in the region of 6000 years along with temperatures known to exist within the earth's crust (measurable) then theres no way hydrocarbons could form under such constraints. The equation on the other hand gives better results when the time value is in millions of years. You can model this in a laboratory and do the same experiment over and over again and get exactly the same results.

Cheers Martin

[Serge]

Great posts Joel, i just love the way you analyse things and how you deliver your info in a coherent manner. You summed it up well in your comments about the damages of religion mate!!!!
While some have their eyes are fixed on Rome, mine are now turned to Israel, the roots....

I have been writing many posts in this thread, many of them were written with head knowledge and some were written after i had prayed for the Lord to shine through my posts . What i will do with this post is up to God and through my heart, to you, my friends.

I remember as a kid when we went camping, the sunday mornings, we'd wake up early, would get a few peanut butter toasts and then head to the church to attend mass, i was borned and raised Roman catholic, i remember that the message of Jesus touched me for the love and humbleness and meakness He had shown His friends, lived a life without comfort or so i understood it, simplicity and a huge heart would be the best words to describe how i felt about Jesus as a child but what i was seeing all around me in those churches was kind of contradicting the message and i often felt uneasy and uncomfortable in church, those golden cups, the pompous ceremonies and rituals, the way those priests were dressed and prayed, the confessional, the statues, the high ceilings, the altar, the way those priests were acting was weird in my young eyes, i found them to be suspicious and boring too.

Then as a teenager, our parish priest was demanding more money to our folks and was pretty arrogant and moralistic in the way he commanded folks to give to the church and that shocked me, it was for the running costs of the church but there was no mention of helping the poor in his words. Anyways, to make a long story short, i soon found it more and more boring to go to church and did my best to escape the mass every time i could, i had better things to do or better places to crash. That priest also had a brandy nose and was not the kind of person i would have developed a relationship with, brief, i thought he was an hypocrit.

As a young adult, i was introduced to the Bible for the first time by 2 of my cousins but i thought that they were weird, to me, the Bible was only for priests, not for the full of hormones kid that i was and i managed to escape them as well, they were pentacostals and my family had told me that they were in a dangerous sect so i thought that it would be best for me not to associate with them but didn't want to hurt their feelings so i left them in a hurry. I remember one night while i was driving from one town to another in search of a new job, i thought of my cousins and prayed right there in my pick up truck as i'm driving, i said Lord, i know that you want me to get to know you but please, don't make me go to their church, i'd like to know you but not through a sect nor a cult, please find the best place for me, i'll be with you, just give me some time to find the right church, Amen. I was 22 years old.

Without "good education, the jobs were not what i was hoping for a future so i went to college and university and was introduced to the secular views of the world and did like many folks, tried to make my place in this world, studied hard, finished all my studies with different diplomas and was ready to bite into the world or so i thought but something was missing in me, i found myself consuming alcohol more and more, drugs, overeating, lack of sleep, a sexual dependancy, many partners later, i want to commit suicide, i could not understand why, as if i was disenchanted with the promises of a good life that the advanced studies were supposed to provide me, i was entering a deep depression and was actually seeing myself pulling a trigger and explode the brains all over the ceiling of that room where i was staying with a girl that i didn't love. I was 27 years old.

4 years later, after seeing a few shrinks, i also start going to EA meetings which helps those wth emotional problems, i'm again in a bizarre relationship and while i'm working in another town on a contract for the government, i'm staying at this ladie's home, had my room and board there and came late one night after drinking with the co-workers, had taken some dope and had mixed it, made a total mess in that house, i was told i was an alcoholic for the first time and fled, full of shame from that place, even bought a bar with the girl i was living with, i was 31.

That relationship and that endeavour in bar owning didn't last long, stayed up all night long and drank the profits till the morning came. Met another girl while taking refuge in a church, she was different, we decided to live together, i get my Dad's job and a friend of mine comes to me one night and said : "Serge, i know you're an alcoholic, you've told me so when you had helped my Mom with her problems but i remember that you said that you were not judging her for you had the same problem only that you were not ready to deal with it yet". He then said: Friend, i know that you're not ready yet but when you are, i want to be the one to be with you at your first AA meeting". A few more months later, as the drinking goes and the violence that i have in me is threathning for my family, i gave up and called him, i prayed this before we went to the meeting: Lord Jesus, this can't go on anymore, i want this to stop before i destroy my family Lord but i can't, it's too hard, i've had no succes on my own so therefore, i give this into your hands and i trust in You to heal me totally, please take my thirst away. He did what i could not do on my own after countless attempts, it just stopped. I cannot take any credit for that for the day i would take any credit, i will start drinking again, i just know it deep in my heart. I was 37.

Got married with my lovely wife 2 years later at the campground, finally made a man of myself, it was the most beautiful day of my life, The air was different, the daylight shone brighter, really felt the presence of the Lord there, after all, it's His institution right?

A year later, i started building guitars thanking Jesus for that new found passion and talent, i decide that i will write a prayer under the top of every guitar that i will build as a way to remind me that the Lord gave me that talent and one year after that, my bud Hesh gives me a guitar at BobC's OLF gathering in front of all my buddies, i'm in Heaven and tears of joy are following me home, life is just too good, it just can't get any better or so i thought.

When you make a promiss to the Lord, He takes you at your Word and if you forget your promises made to Him, He makes you remember them so by my wife's explanations about what the walk with the Lord was ie a relationship where you walk in His footsteps by reading His Word, you talk with Him in prayers and yield your worries on Him, He takes care of the rest, instead of feeling enslaved like i used to, i now feel free for the very first time of my life. I am now 42.

I don't why i told you all of this, it's rather personal stuff but i just sensed that i had to, it just flowed out.

Serge

[kiwigeo]

You've got a few more battle scars than most of us Serge. Brave of you to share it with us brother.

Cheers Martin

[Paul B]

In the center of every single room was a large, earthen water pipe...... Seriously. And the tour guides will tell you that the story was that these monks who devoted their lives to translating the original bible were stoned out of their minds on opium and hashish 24/7.

Nice work if you can get it.....

How the friggin hell do you get that job?

Man, my career guidance counselor at school was crap...

[Ron Wisdom]

Wow, Serge, that's quite a testimony!! Maybe you should go a on the circuit speaking to schools or something.

Ron

[Serge]

Ok Billy dude, i've taken the time to fully decipher your post and will take a week vacation right after this post!

The power of faith is not just some hope in an imagined condition or situation which may or may not be true, faith is the precursor to knowledge.

Nice definition bro, faith is also defined in the text as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

The spriit of peace that comes over one in prayer which is the binding action of all religions, Buddist, Moslem, Hindu.... is prayer. It is the heart of any real religion. That peace is the word of God in itself.

I respecfully disagree bro, denominational religions of christendom or even religions of the whole world don't matter at all. Not all roads lead to Father in Heaven. Where your from don't matter either, in India right now, there are over 40 000 people a day who are turning to Christ despite the fact that they are persecuted and have a menu of how many deities to choose from? Probably more new converts in Africa right now, we're witnessing a global revival and that is the power of the Holy Spirit in action through the prayers of the faithful ones. In Islamic countries, the same thing is happening, it is often reported that Jesus is appearing to them in dreams or in a bright light but to them, conversion is harder because it means that they will lose their families, their jobs and even their lives but when Christ appears to a person,He gives them the strength to overcome even persecution and death.

What is bothering a lot of religions in this world, even christians that are lost in what they believe in is the exclusivity and the narrowness of the road to Heaven presented by Jesus as the Savior of humanity, He's the one who said: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by me". I didn't invent that, He said it. Makes the road pretty narrow and it's either He says the truth or He's lying. For me, it is clear He's saying the truth but for a christian who has one foot in christendom and the other in kabbala and toes in buddhism, hinduism and all the isms of this world, the message can be offensive but our duty is to verify if such claims have a solid foundation which it definitely has. The Holy Bible is the true Word of God. In Jewish tradition, there is a lot of kabbalistic books that are very dangerous to play with Billy, as a friend, please stay as far as you can from that stuff, doctrines of Satan.

Your definition of repentance is what you understand bro but repentance means to turn away from something that you know in your conscience is wrong and when it gets too hard to humanly turn away from something you're addicted to, it takes divine help, my alcohol addiction is a testimony of that, even if i had had all the stubberness in the world, i could never have been freed from it other than with God's help, all i could do was to ask that He would give me new thoughts and help me look elsewhere to not be tempted.

I'm open to look at everything but not open to accept everything as truth.

Your Lillith girl is a demonic entity which has now found her way into feminists agendas, i'd stay away from that stuff, pretty dangerous. And as for the hashish smoking monks and the suppressed books that are not in the Bible, they were dismissed by the early church fathers as being either gnostic gospels or not inspired by the Holy Spirit like those found in the catholic bible called "the apocrypha" which can make interesting reading but are not divinely inspired.

I respect your beliefs on evolution and creation that you see as connected although my understanding of things makes me accept the 6 days of creation as truth because the word YOM in Hebrew has always meant a period of 24 hours and still means the same thing today, any other views would then make God a liar even a gap theory IMHO. What also bothers me with evolution is the notion of "species" in the reproduction cycles, God said that everything would reproduce after their kind not after their species and nature shows us just that, a dog will produce a dog or something of the same family like a wolf for instance but not a non-dog.

I am not promoting worship of Scriptures but what i'm trying to do sincerely is to encourage my friends to seek the Truth and Truth will find them. My message is not one of religion but rather one of relationship, a walk and a talk with the Creator of this planet and this universe.

The best prayer for an atheist or an agnostic would be with sincerity in the heart and trust:

Lord Jesus, this Serge dude says that You exist but i'm not sure, please show me that You exist and let me get to know you please, Serge said that we can have a relationship with You and i'm curious to see if what he said is true so i'm opening up my door to you in trust that You won't hurt me, please come into my heart, walk with me, Amen.

Your bro Serge

[Serge]

Thanks for the kind words Martin and Ron,

Ron, i thought of that too and who knows, maybe the Lord would use me there as well. I got rebaptized a year ago by conscious choice and to become a soldier for Christ so i'll serve Him wherever He wants me too, the streets or the schools, i just love talking about Him and what He did for me. Me and my wife have already started ministry work for the alcoholics and the homeless on the streets in Ottawa and it is tough torealize how much suffering people have when there's a giant hole in their hearts to fill but when you see the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, it gives you a lot of hope, Jesus fills their hearts in a mighty way.

Serge

[joel]

Hi again everybody!

Man! What a story Serge! I'm glad you've found the peace you've been after.

Also, the Book of Ester (certainly her story) is perhaps the best book for teaching women how to be good, strong, Godly women. Or so says my stepmother. And she’s a pretty Godly woman.

I wouldn’t really want to read the Book of Lazerus.

Onto species and speciation, I reckon you’re on the right track. I don’t believe that God created every type of dog (St. Bernard’s, Poodles, etc). I believe he created dog, from which all other types of dog are descended by a process called speciation, or as it is called on farms and by animal breeders, selective breeding. Speciation is genetically degenerative (that is, a loss of genetic info) buy all empirical data to date. For evolution to be true, there would need to be a genetically generative (i.e. a gain of genetic info) process at work. With the amount of ‘evolution at work’ literature released in the last 50 years we would have noticed a generative process if there had been one. (Ready for the counter claims to come flying!)



Martin,

“In naturalistic termsâ€

[kiwigeo]

[quote="joel"]
Martin,

“In naturalistic termsâ€

[kiwigeo]

Speciation is genetically degenerative (that is, a loss of genetic info) buy all empirical data to date. For evolution to be true, there would need to be a genetically generative (i.e. a gain of genetic info) process at work. With the amount of ‘evolution at work’ literature released in the last 50 years we would have noticed a generative process if there had been one. (Ready for the counter claims to come flying!)

Joel, youve made a very sweeping statement that cant be responded to untill I fully understand your definition of the term "genetic information".

Cheers Martin

[kiwigeo]

As an aside, do you know how close the world was to an industrial revolution 2000 years ago? All the pieces were in place; steam power was understood and actually being used for more than experimental purposes (one of those purposes was as a ‘miracle’ opening door in a temple in Greece!). Mathematics was more advanced than anything before or until our own recent industrial revolution. Archimedes was literally a hairs breadth away from developing the mathematical equivalent of calculus. (Calculus is the mathematics that has literally enabled the building of the modern world). Electricity was known and used. Granted for some rather dodgy’medical’ purposes, but also for a form of electric lighting as shown in some Egyptian pyramid carvings (verified by experimentation). The only thing that prevented this ancient industrial revolution was the price of slaves. It was cheaper and easier to buy and replace slaves than to build and maintain a machine. So dismissing the wisdom of the ancients might not be a wise idea (I’m talking about the science, not the slavery).

Make sure you dont confuse technology and science. The Chinese had gunpowder (a technology) but they didnt understand the physiscs and chemistry that controlled its production and ignition. Ditto for steam power. Hero managed to create a crude steam turbine but the science and physics behind it were not understood.

[kiwigeo]

I haven’t run across the Arrhenius Equation before. But wiki is my friend, and it looks like it’s a simple decay function. Besides temperature T, there is also another variable at play, the activation energy Ea. Assuming we know the state of the earths crust at a certain point in time, then we can assign it a value. It can be seen that either increasing the temperature or decreasing the activation energy (for example through the use of catalysts) will result in an increase in rate of reaction.

Most students of chemistry get introduced to the Arrhenius Equation in high school. If youve done any experiments using catalysts then you will have definitely come across the equation.

The chemical process by which hydrocarbons are generated from organic rich source rocks is well understood. Its a process called catagesis which you can model under laboratory conditions and its also a process that can be observed going on in the earths crust at the present day. While clays can sometimes function as catalysts in the process of catagenesis, temperature is still the major controlling factor.

To get hydrocarbons forming within a time span that conforms with a 6000 year old earth you'd need outrageously high temperatures within a sedimentary basin. It's fairly easy to work out what sort of temperature history rocks in a sedimentary basin have been through over time. One method is by carrying out fission track analysis on apetite or other heavy minerals. One can also easily measure the geothermal gradients in current day sedimentary basins. These temperatures are nowhere hot enough to enable hydrocarbon generation over a period of thousands of years, it just can't happen.

Another problem is that oil and gas have definite temperature windows within which they are formed. As a source rock becomes buried deeper in a sedimentary basin it gets hotter and eventually enters an oil generation window followed by a gas generation window. Exceed the gas window and then no hydrocarbons get generated.

There is no way that oil and gas can be generated outside this strictly defined temperature window and the temperatures required are such that if they are plugged into the Arrhenius Equation you just cant get hydrocarbons being generated in less than 6000 years.

[kiwigeo]

Okay, in the time it took to generate those last few posts I could have done a couple of body sessions on the classical and got rid of the pile of dishes by the sink.

Im really going to have call it quits here for the reasons Ive already stated.

Cheers Martin

[Kim]

Martin is onto something here, I think it is cool that we can all debate this stuff without going to war, and I understand that this is an "anything goes" area and it is therefore the appropriate place to post this stuff rather than elsewhere on the ANZLF. BUT fair suck of the saveloy folks, page number three!!! and still we debate the unanswerable question? For goodness sake this IS a guitar builders form.

I am not targeting any individuals here and I will be offended if anyone pulls up their pants and goes home over my comments, but I think we all should remember that this place is in it's infantry. If we are to get this thing off the ground and keep the Australian and New Zealand LUTHIERS forum a going concern for all, then I think we need to be mindful of maintaining some balance in our conversations so we attract people to the core of what this place is meant to be about, building guitars. In my view, getting to know each others personal viewpoints points should remain a supplementary to that core or we need a new name.

This is strictly my own opinion of course and to my knowlege does not reflect the views of any other member on this list, but I suspect it does

Cheers

Kim

[Serge]

. BUT fair suck of the saveloy folks, page number three!!! and still we debate the unanswerable question? For goodness sake this IS a guitar builders form.

I
Kim

Dear brother Kim, this section is just amazing bro, we assisted something extraordinary, we've just showed that it is possible to talk religion without killing each other, and i'll bet that if we were to talk politics it would be the very same thing because the quality of people that we have here is just awesome, let's not fall into political correctness for the sake ot itchy ears, this is what makes this place so cool. People who are offended by a topic always have a choice ie read or not read...

Peace, love

Serge

[Kim]

Agreed Surge my friend but you appear to have missed my point. To successfully argue anything is grand but this is an instrument makers forum, it was not created to exclude such topics as this and that is precisely why this section was created. However this forum was never created exclusively for these kind of topics to dominate proceedings. To believe so is to have an agenda that misses the point of an instrument builders forum.

As I said, all this is fine, but lets not make this area our sole focus for there is plenty of opportunity for that this line of topic on the Internet or every other street corner. At this stage I am more interested in attracting people who share an interest in instrument building to the ANZLF and to do that we need everyone to make an effort to submit content toward the core topic of this forum.

I repeat, I do not begrudge anyone rattling on here, I quite enjoy it myself, but we should all seek to avoid setting up a nest in this section at the detriment of participating in meaningful discussion about instrument building IE get a freaking balance. too much of ANY THING is no good.

Oh, would you look at that page 4 already

Peace

Kim

[Serge]

Agreed Serge my friend but you appear to have missed my point. To successfully argue anything is grand but this is an instrument makers forum, it was not created to exclude such topics as this and that is precisely why this section was created. However this forum was never created exclusively for these kind of topics to dominate proceedings. To believe so is to have an agenda that misses the point of an instrument builders forum.

Kim , I did not miss your point buddy old pal and i do respect your opinion although i respectfully disagree, i don't think that this particular thread has been so much of a debate more than it has been an excellent discussion especially in the last posts. i think that the content was rather well discussed from all sides and if this thread is to extend beyond page 10, i have no problem, i still have plenty of material to bring to the table!

If you were to tell me that these kinds of discussion were to extend beyond this section, i would have a problem too but so far so good bro, i mean there are other topics that have been posted in this section that have nothing to do with either religions talked about here!

Oh, would you look at that page 4 already

Not only that buddy mate, but if you look carefully at the number of replies, i think we're passed 80 which demonstrates that all participants were enthused in participating in such a civilized discussion that usually turns sour after the first round and parties involved will El Kabong each other to death but it hasn't been the case yet, as you said, rather enjoyable!

To top it all up, look at the number of views for this thread are over what, 900? Either they we're all anticipating a Dawg fight or they were really appreciative of the wealth of info shared and of the manner it was discussed. I think they watched it like a soap opera!

Finally bro, how about you start one thread on this section that can enrich the number of differing threads because you know me, i'm the king of posting quick so post at will dude!

[Serge]

. Its a process called catagesis which you can model under laboratory conditions and its also a process that can be observed going on in the earths crust at the present day. While clays can sometimes function as catalysts in the process of catagenesis, temperature is still the major controlling factor.

To get hydrocarbons forming within a time span that conforms with a 6000 year old earth you'd need outrageously high temperatures within a sedimentary basin. It's fairly easy to work out what sort of temperature history rocks in a sedimentary basin have been through over time. One method is by carrying out fission track analysis on apetite or other heavy minerals. One can also easily measure the geothermal gradients in current day sedimentary basins. These temperatures are nowhere hot enough to enable hydrocarbon generation over a period of thousands of years, it just can't happen.

Hi brother Martin,

A lot of assumptions were made though

Important parameters
Several generally unrecognized but important controlling parameters of metamorphism have been suggested.[1]

The absence or presence of water in the system, because hydrocarbon-thermal destruction is significantly suppressed in the presence of water.
Increasing fluid pressure strongly suppresses all organic-matter metamorphism.
Product escape from reaction sites, as lack of product escape retards metamorphism.
Increasing temperature as the principal driver of reactions.

Erroneous assumption
A large body of petroleum-geochemical data suggests these are not first-order reactions.[1] This means that geologic time has a minimal role.

Experiments in closed, wet, pressurized systems are higher ordered reactions rather than first-order reactions.
Ample geologic evidence supports the possibility that the effect of geologic time may be overestimated. The hypothesis of geologic time being a controlling parameter was based upon rocks which are at low present-day burial temperatures, but it was later discovered in all those basins that high to extreme heat flow had previously existed in those basins. The influence of long geologic time on a rock formation increases the probability that high heat flows will occur in that formation.
Water suppresses thermal destruction of hydrocarbons, and hydrogen from water seems to be incorporated in kerogen.
Closed chemical systems suppress catagenesis. Regional shearing of fine-grained rocks opens up closed systems and strongly promotes both catagenesis and rock metamorphism at much lower burial temperatures than in unsheared rocks.
Increasing static fluid pressure strongly retards hydrocarbon generation. This has been found in experiments and helps explain the presence of hydrocarbon concentrations at depths where their composition would not otherwise be expected.
Many measurements of hydrocarbon content in sample rocks have been done at atmospheric pressure. This ignores the loss of large amounts of hydrocarbons during depressurization. Rock samples at atmospheric pressure have been measured at 0.11–2.13 percent of samples at formation pressure. Observations at well sites include fizzing of rock chips and oil films covering drilling mud pits.
Types of organic matter can not be ignored. Different types of organic matter have different chemical bonds, bond strength patterns, and thus different activation energies.
C15+ hydrocarbons are stable at much higher temperatures than predicted by first-order reaction kinetics.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catagenesis_%28geology%29

Another problem is that oil and gas have definite temperature windows within which they are formed. As a source rock becomes buried deeper in a sedimentary basin it gets hotter and eventually enters an oil generation window followed by a gas generation window. Exceed the gas window and then no hydrocarbons get generated.

There is no way that oil and gas can be generated outside this strictly defined temperature window and the temperatures required are such that if they are plugged into the Arrhenius Equation you just cant get hydrocarbons being generated in less than 6000 years..

Some more assumptions here bro, what range of temperature were you talking about?

The temperatures of oil and gas formation in the sub-surface

T. M. Quigley & A. S. Mackenzie

BP Exploration Company Ltd, Britannic House, Moor Lane, London WEC2Y 9BU, UK

Much has been written about the influence of time and temperature on the formation of oil and gas in the sub-surface1–5. However, a majority of previous publications have used a very simple formula to calculate the kinetics of a chemical reaction—usually referred to as the Lopatin approach6–8—which we believe is incorrect. Other more sophisticated schemes have generally used laboratory experiments as their primary calibrants9. Because reaction rates in the laboratory are at least seven orders of magnitude faster than those in nature, their relevance to sub-surface oil and gas formation is unclear, and can only be assessed provided geochemical data from deep boreholes are available10,11. We have calibrated a kinetic scheme that describes oil and gas formation using geological samples that have been heated under both natural and laboratory conditions. These equations predict that in the sub-surface the influence of time is not great, and that most oil is formed between 100 and 150 °C; and most gas between 150 and 220 °C.

Source : http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 40F1A376C5

Got some more for you bro, fission track analysis on apatite are also based on the same assumptions that a a geothermal gradient and a surface temperature and that the apatite grains are heated above their closure temperature for times on the order of 1 Ma, where do they get that million year? assumptions maybe ?

Source : http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/mary.rod ... Track.html

Check the next post bro, there is some new developments.

Serge

[Serge]

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[Serge]

edit

[kiwigeo]

A lot of assumptions were made though

Important parameters
Several generally unrecognized but important controlling parameters of metamorphism have been suggested.[1]

The absence or presence of water in the system, because hydrocarbon-thermal destruction is significantly suppressed in the presence of water.
Increasing fluid pressure strongly suppresses all organic-matter metamorphism.
Product escape from reaction sites, as lack of product escape retards metamorphism.
Increasing temperature as the principal driver of reactions.

Brother Serge,

I fear you are wading into unfamiliar territory with the last lot of posts. From the above it would appear that you dont quite have a grasp on the terms metamorphism and catagenesis, they are NOT one and the same.

Your quotes on Polonioum halos needs a bit of research too bro'. Gentry did his Po halo work back in the late 60's and early 70's and that was based on work done by others much earlier, at a time when the structure of the atom was not as well known as it is today. Over the last 30 years Gentry's work has been pulled to pieces by his peers .....this fact has been conveniently left out of the Creationist texts youre quoting from.

Like most Geologists who frequently lock horns with Creationists I actually keep an extensive library of Creationist texts and most of the stuff in your last few posts seems to be a cut and paste from several of these texts. Many of these texts are dated, and/or are full of selective or just straight out erroneous quotes from scientific literature.

The sad fact is Creationists badly want to be seen to be "doing science" but the problem is their understanding of science is sadly lacking.

I really am not keen on continuing with this debate because its all old stuff Ive worked to death with other Creationists many times over.

I admire you're faith bro' but I encourage you to go through some of the source material youre quoting from and decide for yourself how accurate they are.

Cheers Martin

[Serge]

Hey bro, i will admit that i copied and pasted the 2 last posts and they were too huge to read in one shot, that's why i even provided the link, i am not ashamed of that last link either, i can also delete them, no problem!

But in all fairness bro, and i will delete those 2 last posts so that we don't lose track of where we were but in my first post tonight where i quoted you, i think that i gave links that were rather secular, would it be possible for you to elaborate on the secular links that i gave or at least bring clarifications on these views or more precisions on what you have explained in your last post ?

Thanks Serge

[kiwigeo]

Serge mate,

Have a read of this and then we can re-visit Polonium Halos.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html

Its from a pro-evolution website but I think youll find their quoting a bit more accurate and reliable than some of the stuff youre accessing from the Creationist sites.

The quote on fission track work was an abstract. I'm not going to debate this one until I see the full article. Sorry but I just dont trust quotes from Creationist sources.

Cheers Martin

[BillyT]

Evolution/Creation argument has a lot of the same approach as the flat earth discussions of 400 years ago. The whole of the argument used by the "Christian" at the time was based on one scripture stating the four corners of the Earth, as a sphere would not have corners, the earth must be flat...that's it.

It was easy for church elders to persecute by threatening death, confiscation of property and/or torture to enforce this obviously flawed flat earth concept.

It was even known that a ship at distance would have the hull obfiscated from the bottom up, leaving only the masts till complete obscurance by the water. This proves the surface was curved as that is the only profile that can do this. The insistance, based on false interpretation of scripture, of flat earth, leaves today, a very bad taste in the mouth of all honest men and it should.

The whole warning against private interpretation of the scripture was ignored by these church leaders and obviously used their opinions driven by the extortion by their power in this world, to bring to pass falacious edict.

If God is a God of truth why is it that these men did such if they believed him. Because they would not ask in faith, they would not hear. They would dismiss evidence, by simple convience to themselves.

I don't believe the theory of evolution has all the answers by far, but science has shown the utmost evidences that the earth is not 7000 years old as we know it.

My experience is, the "Christian" spends far too much time on their butts listening to preachers, ministers...whatnot, and far too little time on their knees listening to Father in Heaven.

[joel]

G'day all!

I think you're right Martin. We're wading into too-lengthy discussions that require a great deal of study time to keep on top of.

And you're right about the use of out-dated material. However, both sides can be accused of the same thing.

One last thing Martin. Have you read a book called "The Mythology of Modern Dating Methods" by John Woodmorappe? It is a pro-creation book. I'm curious to get a geologists point of view. It's got some pretty technicated lingo for a layman .

I'm happy to bow out now and let everybody get on with making guitars. It's been real enjoyable! I hope we've all got some thinking material for the next few months. I'll be boning up on a bit of geological stuff...