Discussion of John MacKay's Views

Welcome aboard.You have a major choice to make now:1) Do not look into any reasoning or evidence behind the age of the earth if a young earth is necessary to maintaining your faith.Many of the Christians here will, as Phat as done, point out that you can be a solid Christian without having to take the earth as being 6,000 years old but that is for you to decide.2) Look into the most current threads discussing the age of the earth in the Dates and Dating forum. Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Version 1 No 3 (formerly Part III) is a concentrated look at why the idea that the earth is young is untenable. Make sure you understand what "correlations" are about before you post there. No creationist has managed to handle the contents of that thread yet.If you dig into that you will be faced with these choices:
1) Ignore the evidence and carry on. Some can do that; others find it intellectually dishonest and disturbing.
2) Adjust you're views to that of the majority of Christians as to the age of the earth and what the Bible is actually trying to teach you.
3) Decide that you God is named Loki the trickster God of the Norse.Good luck. You seem to be someone who is both open and honest. We welcome that here no matter what your views.

If you do want to discuss and debate issues you find interesting (and I'd think that anything you believe or anything you know is controversial would be an interesting debate topic *) you could use: as a place to start.What is correct has nothing to do with how much fun someone is when speaking or what tricky debate tactics they use. It is the facts they use and reasoning they do that counts. If you think Mr. J McKay has a strong case to make you can present the parts you like best in threads focussed on them.You might learn something about the quality of information you have been given. But learning is always a bit of a painful process -- at a minimum you have to think and that makes my head hurt.As I noted earlier; it's your choice. People here will not lie to you and if they are mistaken others will jump on them. Those that hang around here will discuss and argue over almost any darned thing. They seem to be a bit addicted to it.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fixed quote box.

This is obviously not intended to be serious even by them. But note that even this they can not report on accurately.

quote:

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as we discover perfect miniature fossil "golf ball" (below), complete with dimples in Dinosaur bed Montana.

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(emphasis added)It is not "perfect" at all. Not even near. It is not a sphere and it is far from uniformly dimpled. It is also probably not a fossil either.

As noted by others it isn't the showmanship that counts but the actual reasoning and evidence.You'll note that for much of the discussions around here those who are not recognized experts are willing to carry the debate to the best of their ability.This is partially because it is an excellent way to be corrected in things one doesn't understand. It is also because it isn't the expertise that counts but the material itself.If Mr. McKay thinks that getting his ideas presented to convince others is important perhaps he will help you to carry them from him to us. Almost all (some cosmology pointedly excepted) of the material can be explained to the layman who is willing to work at it a bit.

No spare time?The advantage here is that a few minutes every few days is enough to demonstrate that you know what you are talking about and to, slowly, move the discussion forward.The disadvantage here is that you do actually have to know what you are talking about.