It takes more faith to accept evolution. ie. They , (by the way Lee, who is they anyway?)......,now back to the show. ---Not sure what you mean here...??? Could you be more specific, please as to what instance of "they" I used (that you seem to be referring to) since your meaning here is unclear. - They found prehistoric man in Arkansas, the oldest find yet. OOOOOPPPs, it turns out that the image of what this prehistoric man was supposed to look like turned out to be based on a pigs, Oink, Oink, jawbone. ---No "they" (your usage, not mine) didn't. I also don't quite get the "Oink Oink Jawbone" sentence, but I suppose a little humor is in order in any debate. Could you please provide a reference to this incident since the top of this forum is titled "Astronomy Net Forum on God and Science", and this appears to be some scientific claim you are making here and science requires references and independant verification for such claims to be considered valid. I know you want to engage in good scientific debate here relative to God so references please to claims made. I'm not sure where the original story of this comes from, perhaps you could help here. I do know it's been around for a long time and for an equally long time has been refuted time and again. I'm actually surprised it still persists, but I can't remember where the original "urban legend" came from. - Now that's faith. Also everybody's trying to explain the sudden mass extiction of most of the life on earth.....that's easy THE FLOOD OF NOAH. Most ancient civilizations have written and oral accounts of the great flood. Most of the fossils found are mass graves, with contorted bones that were buried suddenly by water and mud in bends of river beds. ---No, this is not true. Most fossils are found individually in pieces in various layers of strata. It is in fact very rare that fossils are found in quantity anywhere. I could be wrong but, again, could you provide a reference that says otherwise. - If you've ever seen water at work you can also believe that the Grand Canyon was formed in 9 months. ---I'll admit it would take a GREAT deal of faith to believe this. This is also and old claim made by those wonderful folks of questionable credentials at the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). I won't ask for a reference on this one since I'm already familiar with it. ICR is the source of this piece of poppycock, and it has long since been refuted. On the other hand, you can check out:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-science.html#background

for the complete explanation of where these amateurs (non-scientists) went wrong in ever making such a claim in the first place. The actual explanation of how very bad science was practiced here on their part, and why. By geologists, not people whose only education is in theology, and sometimes, not even that. If you want Rock music, you hire a Rock band, not a Greek Wedding Ensemble. If you want to know about geology, you ask a geologist, not a minister. (Unless he IS a geologist in which case he wouldn't make the totally absurd claim that the Grand Canyon was carved out in 9 months. When you think about it, that claim is almost too silly to be believed. I know you won't let these guys put this one over on you.) The reference I give here also has references of it's own so that the integrity of the scientific method is preserved, as opposed to the manner in which the folks at ICR conduct their "research". Don't believe these guys my friend. Look up the phony credentials they tout for themselves that I gave below in an earlier post. No offense, but if THESE are your references, you need better references. I hope they are not, but I don't know where else this whopper comes from.

Also, to preserve a good tit-for-tat discourse between you and me, here's a couple of old questions I have for you that I would now like YOU to address in your reply, since I've been happy to address yours. Regarding the Biblical Flood: 1. Where did all the water come from? Please don't quote the old "Vapor Canopy" theory since even most creationists are already refuting this one due to the many problems with it. (A vapor canopy that could supply enough water to reach the depth of Mt Everest would have to be over 40 miles thick and would block out the Sun. Surely the world was not in total darkness before the flood.) If you do the math, the answer IS there, at 40 miles worth. Talk about a greenhouse effect. The dark world would also be at about 900 degrees F. Even Noah would have a tough time with this. But, if the flood occured, the water had to come from somewhere. Where do YOU believe it came from? To cover the Earth five miles deeper than anywhere the depth is now, since the story says all land was covered. We have to assume the Bible meant Mt. Everest in the process, otherwise we have to account for how the Bible could be wrong on this account. Then... 2. Where did all the water go when the flood subsided? This one's a little harder, but since I have taken so much time to address YOUR questions, I know you will do me the return honor by not disappointing mine. If it evaporated back into a vapor canopy we'd be steamed meat long ago. And where is the vapor now? The geologists also tell us the water is not underground somewhere hiding there. Seismic research shows this is not so. That's a lot of water man. Where is it? - If a dinosaur was to die today, the flies,maggots and other processes would decompose it to nothing in a very short time. It would have to buried quickly to perserve it. ---This is true, but it in no way proves a global flood had to occur for it to happen. The fossilization process itself takes a bit longer however. How long ago do you believe this flood occurred? The fact that many animal bones no more than 2 or 3 hundred years old are found preserved but not yet fosillized is clear demonstration that no global flood was required to bury them, but also that fosillization does not occur quickly, since these remains are not fossilized. By the way, do you know what fossilization actually is? Do you understand how it works? A fossil "bone" is not really bone at all. Its rock. Mineral rock that takes hundreds of thousands of years to accumulate on a molecule by molecule basis in the shape of the original bone, leaving no bone behind when completed. Once completed, the remains are well preserved for subsequent millions of years. Be advised that Duane Gish, one of the "scientists" at ICR also once said that there were human proteins that more closely resembled bullfrogs and chickens than chimpanzies. For years every biologist that ever heard this piece of silliness has been asking Gish to provide his evidence for this. To this day he evades the question. Gish provides no references. Scientists do. It has become known as the "Gish Gallop" to evade questions regarding proof in discourse. Boy there's a dubious honor for ya huh. A specific bit of huckster tomfoolery one becomes so well known for, folks name it after him. But such is the credibility of those folks over at ICR. Don't take these guys too seriously. - Carbon dating is unreliable. ---Not really. It depends on what age you are looking for. For older dates other radiometric dating processes are used. What few errors do occur in carbon dating usually err on the side of dating things too young, not too old. You need to study the process more so you will gain an understanding of how ALL the radiometric dating processes fit together over the various ages. And how they ALL agree with all the other dating methods like ice cores, tree rings, etc. It's all very cross referenced to the same accuracy across the board, not just Carbon Dating by itself. Carbon Dating anly applies to more recent geological events, not older ones. If radiometric dating were in error, then our entire process of measuring time would be in error. We would have made no trips to the moon or had any success with any spacecraft since radioactive decay is the very process that drives our precise atomic clocks that allow these events to take place with accuracy. Our science has come a long way in quantum mechanics and the ability to measure time accurately is working very well indeed in many ways, including fossil dating.

Check out:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.html

Again, here you will find MORE references and and a thorough analysis of why claims that dinosaur fossils are less than several million years old are not only untrue, but why those claims CANNOT be true. - They have dated petrified trees from the 1980 Mt St. Helens eruption as million of years old....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh......1980 wasn't that long ago. So ,I guess alot of things that we think are true, are just opinion or stories for cash. ---Sorry, this is another Creationist hoax like your "oink oink jawbone" above. It simply is not true. Perhaps you should say "oh" instead.

It's My humble opinion that You have a open mind, so start your quest by reading Darwin on Trial by Phillip E. Johnson, The Illustrated Origins Answer Book, by Paul S. Taylor, or The FACE That Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution, by Hank Hanegraaf. I know you'll enjoy them in your quest for the truth. Also daystarcom.org............pretty cool too. Think about it. Enjoy your journey.......it's alot of fun.

---Thank you. I like to think I have an open mind and I'm sure you do likewise.Yes I have in fact already read most of the works you mention here already. I'm sorry but I find them terribly lacking in anything resembling science. They make an assumption first...that evolution is not true... and then proceed to make points that go toward "proving" that which they already believe. This makes for good fiction like Star Trek or The Maltese Falcon but it has nothing to do with science. Science makes NO assumptions. It looks, observes and then tries to explain what it sees, not the other way around. So in short, it is a journey I have already been taking for most of my life. The path you would suggest I take on this journey is one I have explored also and found it terribly dissapointing and lacking in anything resembling objectivity. No offense. You are right, it was fun. But fun in that it is always enjoyable gaining insight into the ways various people fool themselves into believing what they want to believe as opposed to discovering the truth for what it really is. I don't think God would have it any other way, otherwise, why did He give us a mind that could devise the Space Shuttle and then be so blind as to geological history that we would believe the Earth is a mere 6000 years old when all the evidence clearly says otherwise. Including those atomic clocks that time the Space Shuttle and control it's rockets that fire at exactly the right time to get it home safely. In fact the Shuttle is fairly easy compared to what the Apollo moon missions were. We even had to deal with time delay in communications due to the distance and speed of light so the clocks REALLY had to be accurate. Even more so yet on the Poineer and Voyager missions to the outer solar system. Those clocks that work just like radiometric dating does, on the very same principles. THIS is the journey where the real fun lies for me.

Also, how about we bring it around to Astronomy also since this is an Astronomy site and that is the title of the Page. Evolution is just one aspect of science and actually has less to do with Astronomy/God than it does with Biology. Besides, the Astronomy/God debate is way more theoretical and evolution is actually very easy to prove. The Big Bang and the Creator are much tougher. You might find we even agree more in this area anyway.

I thank you for the discourse.