God - a liar?

Leaving aside he vexed question of whether Adam had a navel Adam would presumably be created older than a newborn and thus would present a false appearance of age. On the other hand there would be no need to create Adam with scars from injuries that did not happen. So creation might make some appearances of age necessary - but there are possible appearances of age that cannot be accounted for by simply invoking supernatural creation. So the question must move on to consider the evidence that lets us conclude that the Earth and the Universe is old and see which class it falls into.

An individual can have an appearance of age (or any other attribute). Say I appear to be 45 (just for now let's go with me on that ok? ) Now I may actually BE 45 but that doesn't mean I don't also appear to be 45. Yes we usually use the word to indicate some uncertainty but that doesn't alter the fact that I appear that way.Miriam Webster says:
3 : to have an outward aspect : SEEM

​

Now then is it deceptive? Well who is doing the deceiving?

​

As has been noted Man wrote the Bible and certainly interprets it and God wrote the rocks.

​

To figure out who is lying (or is at least seriously mistaken) we have to figure out where the fault lies.

​

Where is the error? Our reading of the rocks? No onehaven't shown that yet, heck no one has really tried to show that. Our reading of the Bible? Or did God write the wrong message into the rocks?

​

Where is the error?

I am not saying that "appearance" indicates untrue. The appearance is true, the actual age is false. (Help, nobody understands me)Ned and Paul I cannot justify this despite your input. The problem is, does a woman of 30 who looks 45 have a false appearance of age?
You see, that means to me that it is untrue that there is an AOA. BUT - she does genuinly have an AOA.Did I say an object cannot appear what it appears to be? Could you clarify this?It can be what it appears to be. But in this case, the woman cannot be 45 because she is 30, YET the AOA is genuine. She genuinly has an appearance of age. How can I say "she has an untrue appearance of age"? That would fit if the lady was infact wearing wig and make-up. But the fact is her appearance of age is true. Maybe she has "false age" but not false AOA, but is it logical to have false AOA if her wrinkles are aged and 45 year old - looking? What is false? The AGE is false, not the appearance of age.Please read this twice or so, especially the last paragraph, I want you to understand what I am saying.[This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 04-09-2004]

Mike I think it would be better if you put more effort into understanding what others are writing. I know that not everything I write is as clear as it could be but I've already been quite clear on what I mean by a "false appearance of age".I used "false appearance" to refer to an appearance which misleads i.e. a woman who appars to be 45 but is actually 30 would have a "false appearance of age", as I am using the term. Since the appearance is contrary to the fact it seems reaonable to label the appearance false.Is the distinction you are trying to make based on intent ? If so then the appearance is still a real appearance. Is it that the appearance is artificial ? I think that either would be a better distinction.

I finally get a bit of what you are getting at. Ok we are saying false appearance of age and you say it is an appearance of false age. And I think you have something there. Let me try to use that.In thinking about it as I write. I'm not sure that it should make that much difference to the argument but I do thing that your word order might be better.If we (you and I ) agree that the Earth (young or old) does have an appearance of age AND if we agree that it is, in fact, young then we have a real (true, whatever) appearance of false age.If however, we adopted some of the YEC views where they say the Earth does not have an appearance of old age then they are saying the OEC view is a false appearance of age.Now we have to get back to discussing whether the Earth does have an appearance of great age. Whether it does not in actually fact is a separate question.I think that the view of the scientific side here is that the "truth" is only the best conclusion we can come to and we are always discussing what the "appearance" is, that is what we observe.Therefore, we say that there is a huge amount of correlated observable evidence that the Earth appears to be very old indeed. None of the YEC'ers have done anything to dent that evidence.If they don't dent the evidence they have to agree that the earth appears to be old. In this case a YEC would argue that this is an apearance of false age. If it is not old then who put that evidence there?

Phew, I've got a brain ache. correct, we would have a real appearance of false age. For example, if we agree the earth is young like you say, and it appears old (because we all know it does), then there MUST be false age.Now let us substitute age for passage of time (I've gone logic mad)Let's say we find a rock on Mt St Helens, and we find strata throughout it. We will have an appearance of the passage of time. Yet it will only be false passage of time (age) - as no passage of time happened, or rather, a very small POT happened. So, it must be "false age" - I don't think it has a choice. Also, we can see this Theory of false age all around us. A person with that strange illness, who is a child, and they look like they are old-age. The "age" is NOT passage of time, it is literally a false ageing. Even if the universe is old (we all know it is), then we STILL have examples of false age, like the Mt St Helens example. Yes. the YEC's that don't conclude AOA must have evidence of a young earth. How do you mean though Ned, when you say that those YEC's would say the OEC would take a false AOA? Do you mean the YEC will say that it must be a false AOA, and the old earth evidence is false reading? Fair enough, you won't find me arguing against science anymore just to support a radical position. It can get complicated when discussing the appearance. Hopefully we would agree that there is an AOA and that that does NOT mean the age isn't real. IOW, the universe CAN be old and appear to be also.Surely this means though Paul, that AOA itself is not implying deception? Afterall, if we agree the universe is old and has AOA, where is the deception? Surely, if anything all this stuff proves somewhat, that AOA itself might just mean that - AOA.[This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 04-09-2004]

I think I understand how you are thinking a bit better. If an appearance mis-leads then it is wrong. I think false as in, "untrue" leads me to think that the appearance itself is what you are calling false.Maybe the appearance is not false but it is wrong. For eg, the woman of 30 would have a true AOA, but that AOA is definitly wrong as she is 30, nevertheless, the AOA is true - in that there is a genuine AOA. The AOA is wrong, yet it is not false(untrue) - the age itself is false - yet the appearance must be true, or we would think she was 30. I hope I am speaking sense, I hope you see the point. The age of what we would conclude off of the appearance, is false, and the appearance is wrong in it's conclusion of the age. Yet AOA is not necessarily wrong unless the age it concludes is incorrect.

Well, we agree on AOA being non-deceptive. It is when YEC'ers say that it IS deceptive that the whole thing becomes bad theology as well as bad science. It seems to be the last resort used when they really try to deal with the science.Look at 'whatever' in the age correlations topic today. He was off on tangents about transitionals, dismissed the correlations with an arm wave and ran for cover. That is the common approach - avoidance.When they actually get held to looking at it then the old "appearance" thing is brought out. To avoid the obvious problem with this it becomes Satan who is the deciever for some. I've actually heard this and I'm sure you have.This, of course, isn't really doing what they want but the desparate clutch at staws. Now we have this evidence woven through the universe. It, they agree, looks like age but it isn't cause Satan did it. There they stop. They think there is just a fossil here or there. But they have now made Satan the creator of the universe since the evidence is so woven into the fabric of it. Somehow I'm pretty sure that is not what they intended but it sure as hell is very, very funny. [This message has been edited by NosyNed, 04-09-2004]

Mike, it's been my point all along that the conclusion of intnetional deception is not based solely on the fact that the Earth and the Universe appear to be old. It is based on the strength and the quality of the evidence.In post 80 I took on a YEC argument trying to explain away the success of radiometric dating. As I pointed out the argument required God to take several actions for no apparent reason but to produce the evidence we see. In fact there's really no reason why any of the rocks on the planet should be old enough to date reliably - which means that they should all appear to be near the minimum age for the particular radiometric method used.
EvC Forum: God - a liar?A few posts back I mentioned that Adam would not be expected to be created with scars from events that had never happened. One technique for dating rocks relies on "scars" caused by the decay of uranium - fission track dating:
USGS.gov | Science for a changing world
Fission track dating is being used to try to work out the geological history of Australia over the last 120 million years
http://www.agcrc.csiro.au/projects/2005LO/index.htmlBecause sufficient heat can erase the tracks this technique gives the time since the rock was last hot enough to "reset the clock". I won't be producing many more posts if any until Tuesday, so there's something to think about. How does "apparent age" explain fission track dating ? Why would God create rock which already had fission tracks - or what appeared to be fission tracks - present ?

Mike the Wiz quote :
______________________________________________________________________
Unbelievers have said - it would be a deception.
Those who trust and believe in god - do NOT say it would be a deception
YECs have NOT said it would be a deception.
______________________________________________________________________As a believer I believe it would be a deception. God says a 1000 years are like a day to Him and a day is like a 1000 years.But IF God IS then WHATEVER He does is righteous, so in this context it is not a deception. But I believe God did not deceive. Genesis 1:2 says the "Earth became a waste and a desolation". This indicates that the previous inhabitants did not do well and it indicates that there are eons and eons of time between Genesis1:1 and Genesis 1:2.