Creationism's fall-back point, when faced with empirical evidence that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, always seems to be that God created it to look that way. Since God, being omnipotent, wouldn't need to do this to trick us, I'm assuming the reason is he just didn't want to wait around that long to form the earth and get started on humans. I do this myself sometimes by using my microwave oven to reheat food when I think I don't have the time to warm up the conventional oven or put a pan on the stove. But you know what? I'm always disappointed in the texture of things I reheat this way. And the microwave never reheats evenly. There is something cheap about it, and I always kick myself for taking the easy way out. When I force myself to take the time to heat the pan, then put the pizza in it and wait until I see the cheese melting properly and the pepperoni begin to sweat and the crust start to brown instead of dry out, I'm always much more pleased with the end result. Why do creationists think God wouldn't have been capable of this kind of patience?

So what you're saying is the whole thing comes across half-baked then, right?

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

I liked your post about creationism. I sure hope they have pepperoni pizza in heaven.

I'm sure they do. Check out 1 Kings 17:6;
"The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook."

"Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?" (Luke 11:11)

"God is love." (1 John 4:16)

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Once you find your way, you're there.

Not all creationists insist that God created the univese in seven literal earth days. Those who do are really creating unecessary trouble for themselves.

Let's imagine we are exploring an old gold mine, and we find a Casio Databank watch half buried in the mud on the floor of the mine. Suppose also that the correct time and date are displayed on the watch and it is still running smoothly. Then imagine that I tell you the watch has been there for over one thousand years. "That's impossible!" you say. "That watch could not have been there for a thousand years, and I can prove it!"

"How can you prove I'm wrong?" I say.

"Well, for one thing, this mine was just dug 150 years ago," you say.

"Okay," I admit, "you're right about the thousand years being too much, but the watch has been here for 150 years at least!"

"No!" you say. "Casio didn't make the Databank watch until twelve years ago."

"All right," I say. "The watch was dropped here twelve years ago then."

"Impossible!" you say. "The batteries only last five years on that watch, and it's still running. That proves it has been here less than five years."

While we still can't prove exactly when the watch was left there, you have logically limited the date to five years at the most. You have effectively proven that my initial statement about the watch being 1000 years old is inaccurate. The larger numbers prove nothing in this debate. Even if I were to radiometric-date the mud or the plastic in the watch to try to prove that it is thousands of years old, my data would be meaningless. The same logic can be applied to finding the age of the earth. If several factors limit the age of the earth to a few thousand years, the earth cannot be older than a few thousand years! Even if a few indicators seem to show a greater age for the earth, it takes only ONE fact to prove the earth is young.

The Bible teaches that: God created the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing) in six literal, twenty-four hour days. Then, approximately 4400 years ago, the earth was destroyed by a worldwide Flood. This devastating, year-long Flood was responsible for the sediment layers being deposited (the water was going and returning, Gen. 8:3-5). As the mountains rose and the ocean basins sank after the Flood (Psalm 104:5-8, Gen. 8:1), the waters rushed off the rising mountains into the new ocean basins. This rapid-erosion through still-soft, unprotected sediments formed the topography we still see today, in places like the Grand Canyon. The uniformitarian assumption - that today's slow erosion rates that take place through solid rock are the same as has always been - is faulty logic, and ignores catastrophes like the Flood. (2 Pet. 3:3-8 says that the scoffers are "willingly ignorant" of the Flood.)

Listed below are some of the factors from various branches of science that limit the age of the universe (including earth) to within the last few thousand years. Though it cannot be scientifically proven exactly when the universe was created, its age can be shown to not be billions of years old.

Evidence from space:

1. The shrinking sun limits the earth/sun relationship to less than "billions of years". The sun is losing both mass and diameter. Changing the mass would upset the fine gravitational balance that keeps the earth at just the right distance for life to survive.
   
2. The 0.5 inch layer of cosmic dust on the moon indicates the moon has not been accumulating dust for billions of years.
   
   Quote:

   "I get a picture therefore, of the first spaceship, picking out a nice, level place for landing purposes, coming in slowly downward tail-first, and sinking majestically out of sight." - Isaac Asimov, Science Digest, January, 1959, p 36

   Lyttleton felt that the X-rays and UV light striking exposed moon rocks "could, during the age of the moon be sufficient to form a layer over it several miles deep." - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, vol. 115, pp. 585-604
   
3. The existence of short-period comets indicates the universe is less than billions of years old.
   
4. Fossil meteorites are very rare in layers other than the top layers of the earth. This indicates that the layers were not exposed for millions of years as is currently being taught in school textbooks.
   
5. The moon is receding a few inches each year. Billions of years ago the moon would have been so close that the tides would have been much higher, eroding away the continents.
   
6. The moon contains considerable quantities of U-236 and Th-230, both short-lived isotopes that would have been long gone if the moon were billions of years old.
   
7. The existence of great quantities of space dust, which by the Pointing-Robertson effect would have been vacuumed out of our solar system in a few thousand years, indicates the solar system is young.
   
8. At the rate many star clusters are expanding, they could not have been traveling for billions of years.
   
9. Saturn's rings are still unstable, indicating they are not billions of years old.
   
10. Jupiter and Saturn are cooling off rather rapidly. They are losing heat twice as fast as they gain it from the sun. They cannot be billions of years old. Jupiter's moon, Io, is losing matter to Jupiter. It cannot be billions of years old.
    
11. Among other factors to consider is that all the ancient astronomers from 2000 years ago recorded that Sirius was a red star - today it is a white dwarf star. Since today's textbooks in astronomy state that one hundred thousand years are required for a star to "evolve" from a red giant to a white dwarf, obviously this view needs to be restudied.

Evidence from earth:

1. The decaying magnetic field limits earth's age to less than billions.
   
2. The volume of lava on earth divided by its rate of efflux gives a number of only a few million years, not billions. I believe that during the Flood, while "the fountains of the deep were broken up", most of the earth's lava was deposited rapidly.
   
3. Dividing the amount of various minerals in the ocean by their influx rate indicates only a few thousand years of accumulation.
   
4. The amount of Helium 4 in the atmosphere, divided by the formation rate on earth, gives only 175,000 years. (God may have created the earth with some helium which would reduce the age more.)
   
5. The erosion rate of the continents is such that they would erode to sea level in less than 14,000,000 years, destroying all old fossils.
   
6. Topsoil formation rates indicate only a few thousand years of formation.
   
7. Niagara Falls' erosion rate (four to five feet per year) indicates an age of less than 10,000 years. Don't forget Noah's Flood could have eroded half of the seven-mile-long Niagara River gorge in a few hours as the flood waters raced through the soft sediments.
   
8. The rock encasing oil deposits could not withstand the pressure for more than a few thousand years.
   
9. The size of the Mississippi River delta, divided by the rate mud is being deposited, gives an age of less than 30,000 years. (The Flood in Noah's day could have washed out 80% of the mud there in a few hours or days, so 4400 years is a reasonable age for the delta.)
   
10. The slowing spin of the earth limits its age to less than the "billions of years" called for by the theory of evolution.
    
11. A relatively small amount of sediment is now on the ocean floor, indicating only a few thousand years of accumulation. This embarrassing fact is one of the reasons why the continental drift theory is vehemently defended by those who worship evolution.
    
12. The largest stalactites and flowstone formations in the world could have easily formed in about 4400 years.
    
13. The Sahara desert is expanding. It easily could have been formed in a few thousand years. See any earth science textbook.
    
14. The oceans are getting saltier. If they were billions of years old, they would be much saltier than they are now.
    
15. Ice cores at the south pole and Greenland have a maximum depth of 10-14,000 feet. The aircraft that crash-landed in Greenland in 1942 and excavated in 1990 were under 263 feet of ice after only 48 years. This indicates all of the ice could have accumulated in 4400 years.

Evidence from Biology:

1. The current population of earth (5.5 billion souls) could easily be generated from eight people (survivors of the Flood) in less than 4000 years.
   
2. The oldest living coral reef is less than 4200 years old.
   
3. The oldest living tree in the world is about 4300 years old.
   
4. Another factor to consider: The genetic load in man is increasing. Geneticists have cataloged nearly 1300 genetic disorders in the human race. It is certainly reasonable to believe that the human race was created perfect from the hand of the Creator but has been going downhill as a result of our disobedience to the laws established by the Creator and the increased radiation from the sun. The Bible teaches that we live in a sin-cursed world as a result of Adam's sin.

Evidence from History:

1. The oldest known historical records are less than 6000 years old.
   
2. Many ancient cultures have stories of an original creation in the recent past and a worldwide Flood. Nearly 300 of these Flood legends are now known.

You know, Andromeda, when you copy a whole web page from somewhere else, you are supposed to cite sources, otherwise, it is plagerism.

I won't go into point-by-point refutation of Hovind's nonsense because it has already been done by many. Hovind is a fraud and a criminal.

Now, Andromeda, if you would like to discuss any of these so called "evidences", please do so. In your own words.

Greetings Andromeda, and welcome to the Forums!

I'm not going to try and dispute anything you say here, I don't have the means to. However, there are lots of things about the Bible which were not meant to be taken literally. And one thing which is rather conspicuous, is if God were Eternal, then billions of years would mean nothing to Him, because He's always existed and always will. So, why couldn't the Universe come about in the 15 billion or so years as is claimed? If anything, it would attest to His Eternal nature. While indeed, it would help to account for all the fossilized remains that we find on the earth (dinosaurs and whatnot), suggesting that life did evolve over an extended period. Either that, or you would have to suggest the fossils were put there to make it appear that way, that life in fact had actually evovled, which doesn't make any sense.

I have another theory, which sounds just as plausible to me, is that Adam and Eve were put here as transplants about 10,000 years ago, thus coinciding with the advent of Modern Man in Asia Minor (or, the dawn of civilization), while also taking into account some deluge that occurred about 7,500 years ago, as evidenced of no recorded history extending beyond that. Also, if the human race stems from an original pair, then how would you account for the difference in races except by evolutionary means? Which, conceivably could have occurred over the past 10,000 years. Beyond that though, where are all the missing links? In other words it's very likely that Adam and Eve hit the ground running (evolutionary wise) when they were first transplanted.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

You don't have to, Iacchy. Andromeda did not say any of these things. It was copied word-for-word from another website. See my link if you don't believe me. (Do you have any rules about that?)

Andromeda has exactly one other post, and that one only two sentences long. I'm betting you won't see much more of him here. He strikes me as more of the "post and run" type. But I hope I am wrong.
I don't think much if any of the bible was "meant to be" taken literally, but definately there are some things about the Bible that cannot be taken literally because they would conflict directly with some other parts of the Bible. You should see Biblical literalists begin to tap dance when they are confronted with these contradictions.
Or you could just as easily say that billions of years mean nothing to something that has never existed and never will. In fact, that makes more sense, because any intelligent entity is bound to get bored after a while. A non-entity never gets bored.
I agree with almost all of this. (YAY! ) The only part I disagree with is that it "attests to His eternal nature". It simply attests that the universe has been around quite a while.
There's plenty of recorded history before that. The Lascaux cave paintings are at least 17,000 years old, and they attest to a fairly well organized society. Right now, the oldest humanoid is dated at six to seven million years ago.
I don't believe that anthropologists share your confidence in the dates of racial separation.

And you know what the funny thing is? If you agree that the universe is about 15 billiion years old, but you think that humans only arrived 10,000 years ago, then humans have only been in the universe 1/1,500,000 (less than .000001) of the time the universe has existed. Or to put it another way, for every minute that humans have existed (by your reckoning), the universe has existed more than 28,000 years. (If you use the 7 million year age, then the universe has only existed about 40 years for every minute of human existence.) That doesn't say very much for how important humans are, does it?

Your hypothesis is a nice try to reconcile the Biblical Adam and Eve account with science, but it has, shall we say, a few problems.
We have fossil records of many of the so called "missing links". I can tell you more about the reasons terrestrial fossils are so rare, if you're interested. Suffice it to say that the evolutionary relationship of humans to apes is well established. (No, humans didn't come from apes, but they had a common ancestor, now extinct.)

But I applaud your attempt to include at least some science into your beliefs.

If it wasn't for the fact that I have a spirit, or a soul, and understood that there was a spiritual world, I wouldn't bother trying to explain any of this.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

And if it weren't for the "fact™" that we have no immortal soul or spirit and that there is no spiritual world, I would not bother trying to reason with you.

As a rule, I think you're probably correct, however, by the looks of it, this is probably something which has been widely circulated across the Internet. In fact, the link you refer to doesn't seem to contain the same version (or, at least it's been modified), and doesn't even claim to be "the official" Kent Hovind site. Whereas in the other link you provided it brings up essentially the same argument in order to refute it. So I suspect that these folks would much rather have their views known in such a manner than otherwise. I mean I could be wrong. Thanks for providing the source however.

Actually, this is really the first time this issue has been brought up, but as rule, I don't think we should quote more than one or two paragraphs and provide a link to the source, if available.

Yes, by all means, let's focus on refuting Hovind's claims, not on this petty nonsense about him being a criminal which, as near as I can tell, is entirely unrelated.

Yes, please do ...

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Oh, many apologies, I suppose I never thought of it as "plagerism", merely saving time. Lol. I'll be certain not to do this once again in the future. :) And, by the way, I'm female. :)

Thank you, good lady. Now, would you care to elaborate on any of those "evidences"? I'd really be interested in how closely you have examined them. I've examined them in some detail, and I believe that they are a load of codswallop. But I'd be happy to hear your defense. In your own words, of course.
And, by the way, so am I.

No, that is not the "official" Kent Hovind site. I only spent about five minutes Googling it, so I may not have found the exact site it was copied from, but it has a whole lot of the same stuff. Perhaps Andromeda could link the site from which she copied it. But many of the quotes are unchanged from site to site, meaning that they are not original.
Oh, you're probably right that they would like to have their words repeated verbatim, but they might also want author's credit. After all, everybody wants their website to be visited, eh? But the main reason I object is that the post was not Andromeda's words. I could easily cut-and-paste text from hundreds of different skeptic sites, but that would be wrong. If my opinions really are my own, then it is up to me to defend them. If I cannot, then I would be just a parrot. I choose not to be a parrot.
Well, Andy (as I now call her) has agreed not to do that again, so I hope it will be a moot point.
You are correct. The bit about Hovind being a criminal is a logical fallacy on my part (can you tell me which one?) I apologize.
Ah, I have a second. Be aware though Andy, that I have lots of resources and ample education to refute most of them without even having to look anything up. You'd better do your homework.

Why? Is this something that Science has affirmed? Or, something that you have affirmed? And what's the difference, if any, so long as it can be affirmed? We can affirm that life exists on this planet, yet for all we know, this is the only place in the Universe which has life on it. But, at least we know it does, regardless of whether any of the planets in the Universe know it or not. Which is really all it takes, the ability for it to occur in at least one instance. So, should I be prohibited from speaking of such things if Science doesn't have the means by which to affirm it? ... 666.

By the way, it was Science which gave rise to all these other lifeless possibilities in the Universe.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

It was actually a sarcastic parody of your repeated statements of what you have "affirmed". I thought that if the quotes around the word "fact" didn't give it away, the TM (trademark) symbol would. I guess I overestimated you, Iacchy.

My feeling (which you would know if you paid any attention to the things I have said) is that such "facts" cannot be affirmed. Neither you nor I can affirm or negate the existence of a spiritual world, since there is no evidence either way. But since you are constantly asserting things you cannot know, I thought I'd jump into the act by asserting some ridiculous stuff too.
No, of course not. Science has indeed affirmed the presence of life (as we have defined it) on this planet. Quite possibly, it exists on other worlds. After all, there are many billions of stars out there. Unfortunately, communication with those other worlds is very slow. The closest star is more than four light-years away. Most of them are so far away that they would not have yet recieved the first radio broadcasts transmitted by humans on earth. So if there is life planets outside our solar system, it is likely we will never know it, or at least not for a very very long time.

And I have never suggested that you should not be prohibited from speaking of anything. Neither should I be prohibited from commenting on what you say.
Science didn't "give rise" to anything. Science is not an entity. Science is a method for searching for truth by verification. It does not create truth.

Really, Iacchy, I cannot understand your antagonism towards science. If you were truly a searcher for truth, you should welcome any tool that assisted you in your search. Why is it that you resist and denigrate such a tool?

No sense talking about it then is there?

Well, if I can establish that God exists in my mind, perhaps we shouldn't preclude that other folks can't establish it in their minds either? ... as remote as it might seem that is.

Sarcastic parody huh? And have I done something to offend you, that you should continue to come to my site and post in such a manner?

Science gives rise to whatever it discovers, for example, what goes into making an atomic bomb, hence the rise of the nuclear age.

I don't know if it's Science so much, as it's those who use Science to justify their own beliefs ... 666. While indeed, the same thing could be said about the religious folks who justify whatever they do in the name of their God. In fact there really is no difference.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Sure, there's a lot of sense talking about it, if we can dispense with the requirement we start out assuming that you are correct.
No, that makes perfect sense. God exists in your mind and in the minds of others, hence, He is imaginary. Only if He exists outside of the mind is He real.
Yeah, but you didn't even notice it. I thought you might recognize the way you simply affirm the fact that spirits and souls and such exist if I reversed the situation and affirmed the fact that they didn't. But you immediately called me on it asking how I affirmed this, just as I have done with you many times. Perhaps now you see the problem I encounter when you simply "affirm" things without telling us how you affirmed them.
Well, I have commented before on the rude way you refuse to answer questions and use OMRI to posts I have made even though I try to answer your questions. But I'll get over it.
Science discovered how nuclear energy worked, but it did not create nuclear energy. If you mean by "give rise to" that people learn how things work, then yeah, science "gives rise" to a lot of stuff, both good and bad. That's the world we live in, so I consider it wise to be knowledgable about it.
Science can only justify your beliefs if your beliefs can withstand scrutiny. If they can't then science shows your beliefs to be wrong. It is true that some will claim scientific things (such as men having less survival ability due to not having two X chromosomes) which are not backed up by evidence, and there's really not a lot you can do about that except carefully examine the claims people make.

But you shouldn't mistake science for scientists. Scientists are just humans like you and me full of the same foibles, pride and prejudice that we have. They are not infallible. This is in no way indicates a failure of the scientific method, only the fact that all people have faults.
There is a big difference. The scientific method has a proven track record for uncovering real, verifiable truth. The religious method has no such record.