Entire Antarctic Shelf splitting away from Continent.

[second_pancake]

Of course. Doesn't everyone?  I mean, no way did anything else exist on our planet until Adam and Eve were put here, and they immediatly had the ability to speak intellectually, read and write.  Fossils and carbon dating is just a bunch of whooey cooked up by the government to deviate from the only historically accurate record we have; the bible. 

[Social Conservative]

I found an interesting calculator created by a University of Maryland professor along with his students in partnership with NASA (I haven't validated the exact science of this, but it's interesting nonetheless), that allows you to calculate where man first appears on the planet on a year, week, or 24 hour clock.  Of course, this is a scientific approach to the creation of man (based on astronomy) and not the faith-based religious approach, so this may be moot for many of you to begin with.  Regardless, let's pretend that everyone here has an open mind to science.

Your choice of words is what I find interesting and a common theme among believers of science.  Why did you feel the need to qualify the religious approach as "faith based"?  Is science not "faith based"?  How can you prove evolution?  How can you prove the Big Bang Theory?  I don't suppose you or anybody else can and that is why it is rightly named the Big Bang THEORY and not the Big Bang FACT.  The rub is, you can no more prove your belief system than I can mine.  The difference is I readily admit that my beliefs are based on faith while those who put their faith in science are fooling themselves.

You end this paragraph by insinuating that those who don't believe in science don't have an open mind.  A common practice by those who put their faith in science is to attack those who may disagree with them by classifying them as close minded or unintelligent.  In this instance, you have chosen the close minded approach.

In a 24 hour time period, with the universe's creation occuring at 12:00 midnight, and earth's creation at 4:38pm,  man appears at 11:59:56pm, just under 24 hours from the universe being created.  By condensing the time in which our world was formed, it really makes one think about how little we actually do know.  How can we claim to be all-knowing when it comes to the power of nature, when nature has been around so much longer than we have been?  I read in some science journal (wish I could remember the name or provide a link), that if man were to dissapear today, it would only take 5 days for nature to take over, i.e. weeds overtaking concrete sidewalks/roads, animals reclaiming once noisy and populated housing subdivisions, etc.  And, that I can prove.  Just take a look at my yard.  It's like the ruins of Pompei, lol, and it's only been a week!

We absolutely should not claim to be all-knowing.  The only being that is all-knowing is God.  By the way, depending on what part of nature you are specifically talking about nature has only been around for 5 days longer than man.

[Social Conservative]

And you believe that?

Of course.  Why would it I say it if I didn't believe it?  Do you know some solid facts that I don't know?

[second_pancake]

Do you know some solid facts that I don't know?

Would it make a difference?

[Social Conservative]

Of course. Doesn't everyone?  I mean, no way did anything else exist on our planet until Adam and Eve were put here, and they immediatly had the ability to speak intellectually, read and write.  Fossils and carbon dating is just a bunch of whooey cooked up by the government to deviate from the only historically accurate record we have; the bible. 

And here it is folks, the second tactic commonly used by those who put their faith in science, which is disparaging the intelligence of the person who does not believe as they do.  However, despite the insult I will continue to play along.

I don't in fact believe carbon dating is jut a bunch of whooey cooked up by the government.  I believe that it is a "scientific method" discovered by a couple of scientists.  The problem with carbon dating, is there are far too many assumptions associated with it.  For example, how do we know that the current carbon-14 levels in the atmosphere have remained constant?  Anybody who says carbon dating is a proven scientific method without fault is blindly believing their faith.  Just check this reference:

Carbon Dating - The Controversy
Carbon dating is controversial for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's predicated upon a set of questionable assumptions. We have to assume, for example, that the rate of decay (that is, a 5,730 year half-life) has remained constant throughout the unobservable past. However, there is strong evidence which suggests that radioactive decay may have been greatly accelerated in the unobservable past.1 We must also assume that the ratio of C-12 to C-14 in the atmosphere has remained constant throughout the unobservable past (so we can know what the ratio was at the time of the specimen's death). And yet we know that "radiocarbon is forming 28-37% faster than it is decaying,"2 which means it hasn't yet reached equilibrium, which means the ratio is higher today than it was in the unobservable past. We also know that the ratio decreased during the industrial revolution due to the dramatic increase of CO2 produced by factories. This man-made fluctuation wasn't a natural occurrence, but it demonstrates the fact that fluctuation is possible and that a period of natural upheaval upon the earth could greatly affect the ratio. Volcanoes spew out CO2 which could just as effectively decrease the ratio. Specimens which lived and died during a period of intense volcanism would appear older than they really are if they were dated using this technique. The ratio can further be affected by C-14 production rates in the atmosphere, which in turn is affected by the amount of cosmic rays penetrating the earth's atmosphere. The amount of cosmic rays penetrating the earth's atmosphere is itself affected by things like the earth's magnetic field which deflects cosmic rays. Precise measurements taken over the last 140 years have shown a steady decay in the strength of the earth's magnetic field. This means there's been a steady increase in radiocarbon production (which would increase the ratio).

And finally, this dating scheme is controversial because the dates derived are often wildly inconsistent. For example, "One part of Dima [a famous baby mammoth discovered in 1977] was 40,000 RCY [Radiocarbon Years], another was 26,000 RCY, and 'wood found immediately around the carcass' was 9,000-10,000 RCY." (Walt Brown, In the Beginning, 2001, p. 176)

http://www.allaboutarchaeology.org/carbon-dating.htm

[Social Conservative]

Do you know some solid facts that I don't know?

Would it make a difference?

I take it you don't?

[Lunican]

Specimens, cosmic rays, ratios, precise measurements, magnetic fields, radiocarbons... geez, this all sounds so scientific.

[second_pancake]

As much as I would love to get into a debate about religion vs. science and faith vs. fact, it's a subject that has been debated for thousands of years and there isn't anything I could write here that would be any different than what's already been debated and published a million times over.  I will say this, however, science is what determined that Polio can be prevented by injecting a person with a small amount of the disease to build anitbodies that work to fight against any future possible infections.  Faith is contracting Polio and watching your body deteriorate while you pray to get better.

Religion IS faith-based and not based on anything that can be proven.  When you make a claim, the purden of proof is on you.  No one can prove a negative.  In order for someone to prove that something DOESN'T exist, you must first prove that something else DOES.  Science can prove the world is older than 6000 years because we have developed technology that's tested and proven, that can read carbon-based matter remains in the soil and rock we're standing on that show otherwise.  Science has proven the world is round because we've sailed around it from one point right back to that point without ever turning around and retracing our steps.  No one could prove their claim that the world was flat.  If they could, they would have fallen off of it and not lived to come back and tell anyone.

Incidently, a theory is not fact.  So, yes, you're right by saying that theorys are a form of faith which is why it's not called a fact.  No one ever said a theory was fact.  Theories are developed when facts forming an idea are put together but the loop can not be closed.  It's an educated guess.  Just because I believe in a scientific approach doesn't mean I believe every Joe-Schmo scientific theory.  Generally speaking, I don't believe things, nor do I speak of them as fact, until they can be proven. 

Oh, and if you truly believe that science is nothing more than people with a lot of faith in something other than God, then I suppose you should forgo getting vaccines, going to the doctor, taking any form of medicine, using electricity, driving a car...actually you shouldn't get on a bike either, or even type on the keyboard attached to the computer you're using.  After all, the only reason it's there is because someone believed it into existence, right? 

[JeffreyS]

Faith has you take the polio vaccine and pray that it works.  It would be so easy to argue if faith meant abandoning science and reason but it does not. Their are some who reject scientific achievements but you know this isn't the norm.  It just messes up your zinger not to fit people in their neat little boxes.

[second_pancake]

Faith has you take the polio vaccine and pray that it works.  It would be so easy to argue if faith meant abandoning science and reason but it does not. Their are some who reject scientific achievements but you know this isn't the norm.  It just messes up your zinger not to fit people in their neat little boxes.

You can look into a microscope with infected cells, introduce the vaccine and watch it work...no faith involved.  If it were a matter of hoping, praying and guessing, there would be cases of Polio all over our country from people who've had the vaccine.  If we use the ideaology that SC and yourself are using, then anything and everything only exists because we believe it to be so, and when we stop believing it will be no more.  You're asking to prove whether truth is truth and fact and is fact.  You're asking to prove whether I am here or if "here" even exists.  Any facts or evidence that are laid before you will just be dismissed as there is no proof that the proof is actual proof.  No one can win arguments like this because they're completely circular.  So, yes, you have rejected reason if this is what you believe.  Reason has an objective end, faith does not.

[JeffreyS]

Faith is not Synonymous with reason one is just not a rejection of the other.  Some cures work on some people for some afflictions. Things can be proven and other things work but we don't know why.  I know arguing with someone whose come back is just I believe it can be frustrating.  I just hope you just do not equate faith with being dumb.

[Social Conservative]

You can look into a microscope with infected cells, introduce the vaccine and watch it work...no faith involved.  If it were a matter of hoping, praying and guessing, there would be cases of Polio all over our country from people who've had the vaccine.  If we use the ideaology that SC and yourself are using, then anything and everything only exists because we believe it to be so, and when we stop believing it will be no more.  You're asking to prove whether truth is truth and fact and is fact.  You're asking to prove whether I am here or if "here" even exists.  Any facts or evidence that are laid before you will just be dismissed as there is no proof that the proof is actual proof.  No one can win arguments like this because they're completely circular.  So, yes, you have rejected reason if this is what you believe.  Reason has an objective end, faith does not.

I like how you have reverted to using the extreme to try and win your argument.  You, me and everyone else reading this knows what form of science is the centerpiece for this discussion.  And if you will read back, you will see that the argument is not about those things proven to be facts.  The cure for Polio, has indeed been PROVEN, and therefor is considered to be fact.  But, you really already knew this and only brought it up due to your inability to prove (or make fact) that the earth is older than 6,000 years.  You brought up carbon dating, and yes we all know what carbon dating is, but have not explained how a method loaded with assumptions could prove anything to be fact. 

For clarification, what I am asking is for you to prove the earth is older than 6,000 years (if you would like to go ahead and prove evolution as well it would be much appreciated).

In fact (pun indented), the only thing you have proven is that you are very arrogant to believe that anyone who puts their faith in God and His word is somehow of lesser intelligence than you.

[second_pancake]

Faith is not Synonymous with reason one is just not a rejection of the other.  Some cures work on some people for some afflictions. Things can be proven and other things work but we don't know why.  I know arguing with someone whose come back is just I believe it can be frustrating.  I just hope you just do not equate faith with being dumb.

Understood and agreed.  No, I don't equate faith with being "dumb" at all.  I am a very fact-based person.  I don't believe things for the sake of believing.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  The sky is blue, grass is green, I am alive.  These are things that just are and the only proof I need is the fact that I have eyes to see and I am here to read this and feel the keys under my fingers.  Others have different philosophies and different outlooks; right, wrong, good, bad, indifferent.  Again, it just is.

Btw, my mother is a devout Christian and I don't believe in most everything she says, but she is one of the smartest women I know

[Social Conservative]

Specimens, cosmic rays, ratios, precise measurements, magnetic fields, radiocarbons... geez, this all sounds so scientific.

You win...these things do exist!!!

But, how exactly does their mere existance prove the earth is older than 6,000 years?

[second_pancake]

For clarification, what I am asking is for you to prove the earth is older than 6,000 years (if you would like to go ahead and prove evolution as well it would be much appreciated).

You know what, you're right.  I concede.  I CAN'T prove the earth is older than 6,000 years because I am not, nor have I ever been, a scientist.  I don't own or know how to build the equiptment that would allow me to do the research to prove this.  I don't know how to take a core sample, analyze fossils, or extract DNA from dinasaur bones.  Alas, all I can do is read books written by people who have done all of the above and have documented every step taken to come to the conclusion they have drawn.  Thousands of books that all have the same thing written in them, over and over again in various languages and are known to be true by hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world because they have duplicated the tests and come to the same conclusion.  The burden is not on me to prove the world is over 6,000 years old, my friend.  It is for you to prove it is not.