...and why should I accept your belief as true?
Make your best argument.
Contention 1: A Young EarthSubpoint A: GeologySediments:Every year water and wind erode about 20 billion tons of dirt and rock debris from the continents and deposit them on the seafloor. Most of this material accumulates as loose sediments near the continents. Yet, the average thickness of all these sediments globally over the whole seafloor is not even 1,300 feet (400 m). Some sediments appear to be removed as tectonic plates slide slowly (an inch or two per year) beneath continents. An estimated 1 billion tons of sediments are removed this way each year. The net gain is thus 19 billion tons per year. At this rate, 1,300 feet of sediment would accumulate in less than 12 million years, not billions of years! This evidence makes sense within the context of the Genesis Flood cataclysm, not the idea of slow and gradual geologic evolution. In the latter stages of the year-long global Flood, water swiftly drained off the emerging land, dumping its sediment-choked loads offshore. Thus, most seafloor sediments accumulated rapidly about 4,300 years ago.Rock layers:In many mountainous areas, rock layers thousands of feet thick have been bent and folded without fracturing. How can that happen if they were laid down separately over hundreds of millions of years and already hardened? Hardened rock layers are brittle. However, they can be bent and folded soon after the sediment is deposited, before the natural cements have a chance to bind the particles together into hard, brittle rocks.The region around Grand Canyon is a great example.There are whole sequences of these hardened sedimentary rock layers being bent and folded, but without fracturing. Tapeats Sandstone, which is 100–325 feet (30–100 meters) thick, is bent and folded 90° in some instances. The Muav Limestone above has similarly been bent. However, it supposedly took 270 million years to deposit these particular layers. Surely in that time the Tapeats Sandstone at the bottom would have dried out and the sand grains cemented together, especially with 4,000 feet (1,220 m) of rock layers piled on top of it and pressing down on it? The only viable scientific explanation is that the whole sequence was deposited very quickly—the creation model indicates that it took less than a year, during the global Flood cataclysm. So the 520 million years never happened, and the earth is young.Heat and pressure can make hard rock layers pliable, so old-earth advocates claim this must be what happened in the eastern Grand Canyon. Just one problem. The heat and pressure would have transformed these layers into metamorphic rocks. Yet Tapeats Sandstone is still sandstone, a sedimentary rock!But this quandary is even worse for those who deny the Flood. The Tapeats Sandstone and its equivalents can be traced right across North America, and beyond to across northern Africa to southern Israel. Indeed, the whole Grand Canyon sedimentary sequence is an integral part of six megasequences that cover North America. Only a global Flood cataclysm could carry the sediments to deposit thick layers across several continents one after the other in rapid succession in one event.Subpoint B: AstronomyFaint Sun Paradox:Evidence now supports astronomers’ belief that the sun’s power comes from the fusion of hydrogen into helium deep in the sun’s core, but there is a huge problem. As the hydrogen fuses, it should change the composition of the sun’s core, gradually increasing the sun’s temperature. If true, this means that the earth was colder in the past. In fact, the earth would have been below freezing 3.5 billion years ago, when life supposedly evolved.The rate of nuclear fusion depends upon the temperature. As the sun’s core temperatures increase, the sun’s energy output should also increase, causing the sun to brighten over time. Calculations show that the sun would brighten by 25% after 3.5 billion years. This means that an early sun would have been fainter, warming the earth 31°F (17°C) less than it does today. That’s below freezing.But evolutionists acknowledge that there is no evidence of this in the geologic record. They even call this problem the faint young sun paradox. While this isn’t a problem over many thousands of years, it is a problem if the world is billions of years old.Comets:A comet spends most of its time far from the sun in the deep freeze of space. But once each orbit a comet comes very close to the sun, allowing the sun’s heat to evaporate much of the comet’s ice and dislodge dust to form a beautiful tail. Comets have little mass, so each close pass to the sun greatly reduces a comet’s size, and eventually comets fade away. They can’t survive billions of years.Two other mechanisms can destroy comets—ejections from the solar system and collisions with planets.Given the loss rates, it’s easy to compute a maximum age of comets. That maximum age is only a few million years. Obviously, their prevalence makes sense if the entire solar system was created just a few thousand years ago, but not if it arose billions of years ago.Subpoint C: PaleontologyA recent discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer has given reason for all but committed evolutionists to question whether dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago.Bone slices from the fossilized thigh bone of a T-rex found in Montana were studied under the microscope by Schweitzer. To her amazement, the bone showed what appeared to be blood vessels of the type seen in bone and marrow, and these contained what appeared to be red blood cells with nuclei, typical of reptiles and birds (but not mammals). The vessels even appeared to be lined with specialized endothelial cells found in all blood vessels. Amazingly, the bone marrow contained what appeared to be flexible tissue.It is quite literally impossible for such detail to be preserved for 65 million years.However, many studies of humans of old age show all the sorts of detail Schweitzer reported in her T. rex. The Tyrolean iceman, found in the Alps in 1991 and believed to be about 5,000 years old, shows such incredible preservation of DNA and other microscopic detail.We conclude that the preservation of vessels, cells, and complex molecules in dinosaurs is entirely consistent with a young-earth creationist perspective but is highly implausible with the evolutionist’s perspective about dinosaurs that died off millions of years ago.Contention 2: Unlikelihood of Big Bang/Old EarthOccam’s Razor states that that which has the fewest adjustable parameters should be chosen. However, the Big Bang theory opposes Occam’s Razor, because it can only exist with innumerable adjustable parameters.This is proven with unproven substances:For example, Dark Matter and Dark Energy have never been proven, or observed in any way whatsoever, yet the Big Bang theory depends on the existence of such potentially mythological substances. Not only that, but in order for the Big Bang theory to even be valid, dark matter and dark energy would have to be the most abundant things in the universe.Another example is the magnetic monopole.If the Big Bang theory were true, it should be one of the most prevalent (common) particles in the universe. However, instead it is the complete opposite - a magnetic monopole has never even been observed, not even once.It is also proven with the improbability of the universe having been randomly birthed to the fine-tuning required for life:Even absolutely minuscule tweaks in the laws of nature would be devastating for life.For example, If protons were 0.2 percent heavier, they would decay into neutrons, destabilizing atoms.It becomes clear, that some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be less than 1 part in 10^40000. Imagine shooting a bullet from one side of the observable universe to a 1-inch target on the other. It would have a one out of 10^60th chance of hitting. That compared to 10^40000 is mind-blowing, and impossible to ignore.Here's another quote to put it into perspective:"Imagine 10^50 blind persons each with a scrambled Rubik's cube, and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously arriving at the solved form. You then have a chance of arriving by random shuffling of just one of the many bio-polymers on which life depends. The notion that not only the bio-polymers but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order."Sources compiled:
Subpoint A: GeologySediments:Some sediments appear to be removed as tectonic plates slide slowly (an inch or two per year) beneath continents. An estimated 1 billion tons of sediments are removed this way each year. The net gain is thus 19 billion tons per year. At this rate, 1,300 feet of sediment would accumulate in less than 12 million years, not billions of years!
Rock layers:There are whole sequences of these hardened sedimentary rock layers being bent and folded, but without fracturing. [...] The heat and pressure would have transformed these layers into metamorphic rocks. Yet Tapeats Sandstone is still sandstone, a sedimentary rock!
Subpoint B: AstronomyFaint Sun Paradox:Evidence now supports astronomers’ belief that the sun’s power comes from the fusion of hydrogen into helium deep in the sun’s core, but there is a huge problem. As the hydrogen fuses, it should change the composition of the sun’s core, gradually increasing the sun’s temperature. If true, this means that the earth was colder in the past. In fact, the earth would have been below freezing 3.5 billion years ago, when life supposedly evolved.
Comets:A comet spends most of its time far from the sun in the deep freeze of space. But once each orbit a comet comes very close to the sun, allowing the sun’s heat to evaporate much of the comet’s ice and dislodge dust to form a beautiful tail. Comets have little mass, so each close pass to the sun greatly reduces a comet’s size, and eventually comets fade away. They can’t survive billions of years.
Subpoint C: PaleontologyA recent discovery by Dr. Mary Schweitzer [...] It is quite literally impossible for such detail to be preserved for 65 million years.
Contention 2: Unlikelihood of Big Bang/Old EarthOccam’s Razor states that that which has the fewest adjustable parameters should be chosen. However, the Big Bang theory opposes Occam’s Razor, because it can only exist with innumerable adjustable parameters.
The problems with this clock: not all continental sediment reaches the ocean floor; geological processes are not consistent. Some sediment is caught up in river deltas, continental shelves, slopes, or suspended in the ocean for years. It is also not reasonable to expect erosion or subduction to operate at consistent paces over millions of years. [Link] This one was clever - I liked it.
I assume since your were playing devil's advocate, you know this is false? Sedimentary rock can be deformed without melting.
Yes it can. The problem is, it fractures unless deposited quickly, or heat and pressure make it pliable. Since it isn't fractured, eithera. the rock layers were deposited quickly during the flood while wet and pliable, then hardened.orb. they slowly deformed due to heat and pressure.The problem with b is that, supposedly, the rock should be metamorphic if it is true.
Snelling’s argument fails for several reasons.1. First, Snelling has oversimplified the processes of rock deformation by stating that it is either ductile deformation of soft rocks, or plastic deformation of soft rocks. It is one thing to simplify a scientific concept for the sake of writing for a general audience, but Snelling has completely mislead his readers on this one.Snelling states that only soft sediments are capable of ductile deformation; that soft sediments will deform like clay, while solid rocks are brittle and only capable of fracture. In reality, most solid rocks are capable of either brittle or ductile deformation, depending on the conditions. Factors that determine which will happen include the type of rock, the amount and type of stress applied to the rock; lithostatic pressure (due to the weight of overlying rocks), temperature, strain rate (fast or slow deformation), type of cement holding the grains together, and fluid pressure.At low temperatures and pressures, such as those encountered at Earth’s surface, almost all rocks deform in a brittle manner. If one applies sufficient stress to these rocks, they will break. As one goes deeper in the Earth’s crust, temperature and pressure increases, and rocks are more likely to behave in ductile rather than a brittle fashion. Some rock types can deform by folding at depths of less than one kilometer if stress is applied slowly. With increasing depth and temperature, more rock types can deform by folding rather than faulting.The Tapeats Sandstone is presently buried beneath up to two kilometers of sediment, and was likely buried more deeply than this at the time of deformation.2. A second problem for Snelling’s argument is that there are a variety of mechanisms by which a solid rock can bend rather than break. Think of a layer of sandstone, such as the Tapeats Sandstone at the base of the Grand Canyon Paleozoic sedimentary pile. A layer such as this can be folded without significant fracturing by several means:
- Intergranular movement — individual sand grains slide past each other
- Intragranular deformation — internal distortions within individual grains, often at the atomic level
- Recrystallization — atoms are rearranged at the atomic level, often in the presence of fluids.
Snelling completely ignores these, even though any of them could have been in operation at the time of deformation.3. A third—and very serious—problem for Snelling’s argument is the nature of soft-sediment deformation. He tries to show that intense folding in the Tapeats Sandstone is the result of soft-sediment deformation. But if the Tapeats and overlying formations had been soft at the time of deformation, soft-sediment deformation and slumping would have occurred on a much larger scale than what is seen at this location in the Grand Canyon.When layers of solid rock deform, they maintain their integrity as distinct layers. For example, whether folded or faulted, the Redwall Limestone of the Grand Canyon retains its identity as a distinct layer, without mixing with other rock units. Soft sediments, on the other hand, can respond to stress in a number of ways. In addition to folding, a results of deformation of soft sediments includes different types of soft sediment deformation and differential loading structures, such as intense localized folding, diapirs, sand pillows, and clastic dikes (Fig. 3). These structures are formed because of the inherent instability of a stack of unconsolidated sediments of varying densities and water contents.Soft sediment deformation structures are common within individual layers of the geologic column, having been formed when these layers were unlithified. For the young-Earth creationists to make their case, however, they need to be able to demonstrate that soft sediment deformation is present in the geologic record on a massive, inter-formational scale. It would not be enough to point out isolated instances of soft-sediment deformation within layers.4. Related to the problem of soft-sediment deformation is the problem with slumping. If this stack of sediments—a few thousand meters thick—were faulted as in Figure 1, one would expect the upper layers to slide downhill under the influence of gravity (Figure 4). As a rule, this sort of thing is not observed in the geological record, and where it is (e.g. Heart Mountain, Wyoming) it clearly occurred in the solid state.
It actually means the Earth received less heat from the sun, not that the Earth would have been below freezing.
The change in luminosity is not as drastic as it sounds. Much of the change would have occurred before the origin of life; the luminosity increase since the origin of life is about 25 percent. And this translates to a 7 percent increase in temperature when the earth's heat outflow is taken into account. The 7 percent change described above assumes no feedback system, but the earth's climate feedback systems are complex. In particular, the greenhouse effect and albedo could moderate the temperature further. On the early earth, it is likely that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane were commoner than they are today.- Life has survived fairly large changes in climate over its history, from a near-global glaciation in the late Precambrian, to a global temperature warmer than today's in the Carboniferous.
I'm curious if this was directed at an actual claim by old Earth proponents? I imagine your source was probably relying on information provided by old-earthers.
Again, thanks for sharing your debate - I learned some new arguments for a young Earth.