God - a liar?

OK here's a response. God is supposedly infinitely powerful and knowledgable. If the universe looks exactly as if it is old it is either because it *is* old or because God wants it to look exactly as if it is old. It is not possible that the appearance of age would be an accidental or incidental side effect because the first would mean that God had made a mistake and the second would mean that God's power was limited.And let us be very clear - when we say that the universe looks old, we aren't just saying that this star looks about this old. What we see is an appearance of *history*. Astronomers see events that - if the universe is young - never happened. Geologists find the remains of volcanic eruptions that could not have happened and can reconstruct landscapes that never existed from the rocks. The magnetic stripes on the sea floor show magnetic reversals that never happened. Ancient rocks have been deliberately manufactured to appear to be ancient rocks when the radioisotopes are examined. If, that is, we assume that the Universe is young.And if we assume that the universe is young, how can we explain all these - and more - excpet by a monumental act of deception ?

I didn't say that God had said anything about the age of the universe.Your answer says that God isn't a liar because it is all our fault for believing the lies that He created. That contradicts itself.There is a huige amount of self-consistent data thaty points to the antiquite of the universe. If the "Apparent Age" argument is right that is God's deliberate choice. An act of intentional deception. You don't answer that. You can't answer that.You ask if I consider the YEC viewpoint - but you don't show how it addresses the points I raised. It doesn't. How can it ? I don't talk about "degradation" I talk about indpendant lines of evidence all of which have to be false if the "Appearance of age" argument is true - none of them based on "degradation". If the YEC view was relevant you could show how it DID address my points. You don't. So you really don't have any reason to think that it is relevant do you ?I ask if you have actually considered the points I raised. Because you don't answer them.

Again you aren't dealing with the points raised. Not even the points you bother to quote.The fact is that the universe tells us that it IS old. There is no other reasonable qway to understand it.If the "apparent age" claim is true then all this is a massive deception engineered by God. THAT is what is meant when it is said that the apparent age argument makes God a liar.What you call a "strawman" is the view that intentional deception is intentional deception. I say this because you offer no reasonable response to the arguments that the "apparent age" argument requires intentional deception.

I never said that anyone was forced into the "apparent age" position. And I certainly never said that it was MY position. MY position is that the universe really IS old.My position is that explaining away the evidence of age as "apparent age" requires a deliberate deception on God's part.You have offered no alternative to this. All you do is to try to blame the victims of the deceit for being deceived. Indeed you call a simple trust that nature is NOT a massive deception "trickery" !Perhaps it all boils down to a worship of lies. You believe that God is a liar - but you lie about it. It makes more sense of what you are saying than the idea that you are honestly trying to discuss the matter. If you wanted to do that then you would deal with the actual issues instead of trying to blame the innocent.

So basically what you are saying is that it is "nonsense" to prefer views based reason over those based on your personal prejudices.That is what it comnes down to. You don't address my reaoning at all. You don't offer any reasonable alternative. You just make up lame excuses.The simple fact is that huge amounts of self-consistent evidence says that the Universe and the Earth are old. The "apparent age" argument says that the Universe and the Earth are young and only appear old because God created them that way. I point out that the only plausible reason for this is a deliberate deception by God.Therefore I say that the apparent age argument says that God is a liar.You don't answer that argument at all except with "blame the victim" rhetoric. Yet if we beleive your rhetoric you cannot trust ANYTHING you see. Believing the evidence of your senses is just a "trick" to catch God in a lie. I don't thinbk even you REALLY beleive your own argument. I think it is just an excuse that you aren't even thinking about - and we know THAT because you don't even TRY to apply it to the evidence that I actually mentioned !

Mike you still do not address the evidence. Unless and until you can offer a reasonable explanation OTHER THAN deliberate deceit then you have no case. And you want to leave this thread before even trying.Let's have an analogy that REALLY deals with your "argument".If someone knowingly hands over a forged banknote as payment but does not SAY that it is genuine then according to you they are not guilty of any deception. If somebody accepts that note then THEY are guilty of "trickery".According to you deceivers are innocent of deceit. The people they decieve are using "trickery" - THEY are guilty.And that is all your "argument" amounts to. Blame the victims to "exonerate" the guilty party.It doesn't work Mike. It isn't even honest.

No, I am not misrepresenting your position. Your posiiton is that that the "apparent age" is not a deception. Yet you do nothing to show that there is anything wrong with my argument that "apparent age" REQUIRES an intentional deception. Instead you accuse those who have been decieved of "tricks".My analogy accurately represented your defence of the "apparent age" argument. Since the blank note does not have an "appearance of being genuine" your rewrite is the misrepresentation. Nor does anyone mistaking the value of the note. THe WHOLE POINT of "appearance of age" is that the evidence DOES support an old age - and as I have pointed out the evidence is very strong.So your argument NOW is "if the evidence wasn't very good at all then apparent age wouldn't make God a liar. Therefore apparent age God doesn't make a liar even though the evidence IS very strong".That's just illogical.

Mike you know full well that the conclusion of science is that the Universe and the Earth are old. This conclusion has lasted a long time and is supported by overwhelming evidence.SO if the universe is young there IS a real deception. And in my first post I argue that this has to be intentional - and those arguments you have not addressed.Now, Mike are you prpeared to START to discuss this honestly ?

Well no, I don't think that you are honestly discussing the matter. The fact that you STILL haven't even tried to answer the arguments I made in my first post are evidence enough of this.THe arguments you do produce aren't exactly evidence that you are seriously considering the issues either.For instance the whole point of replacing the banknote in my analogy with blank paper essentially removed the whole concept of apparent age - the very point under discussion. That is hardly an honest argument.But analogies prove nothing. My point is that the evidence of the antiquity of the Universe and the Earth *can only be* adequately represented by a very good forgery indeed. If you want to dispute that then you need to actually dicuss the lines of evidence I raised back in my first post. But you don't do that.So let's look at your "thinking". In your thinking the evidence of age is superficial and easily shown to be incorrect by investigation. Now we KNOW that that is NOT the case with the Universe or the Earth. Centuries of investigation have found more and more evidence that the Earth and the Universe are indeed old. So your "thinking" relies on a false assumption - and one I already pointed out as false in my first post to this thread. And you put THAT forward as an honest attempt at discussion ?So when you rewriet my analogy:
1) You say that the blank note represents the Earth
By doing so you are claiming that the Earth has NO significant evidence for antiquity. I think that you know that that is not true.2) You say that the Universe is represented by a 5 note
By doing so you are saying that anyone who reasonably investigate the universe will discover that it is far younger than the astronomers have concluded - but the astronomers HAVE are the people who HAVE been invesitgating the age of the universe. So obviously your change makes the analogy invalid by destroying the resemblance to the actual situation.In your final paragaph you again ignore the fact that I explained exactly WHY the appearance of age can only be attributed to intentional deception. You cannot honestly dismiss that issue without addressing my arguments.So let me sum up WHY I say you are not honestly discussing matters.1) Despite my repeated referrals back to my original post you refuse to answer the points I raised there. Honest discussion requires that you DISCUSS the points that have been raised - not ignore them.2) Your arguments rely on false analogies - and as I state above analogies whic h you at least SHOULD know to be false.3) You try to exonerate a deceiver by blamign the victimes for being decieved.

What I THINK is that creationists prefer NOT to consider the facts. Instad they ASSUME that they cannot be wrong so all they have to do is to think up some excuse. They don't care if it can't stand up to the slightest examination. After all it must be true because it leads to the "right" conclusion.For instance in your rewrite of my "banknote" analogy you replaced the note with a blank piece of paper. Did you even THINK that you were actually removing a vital piece of the analogy ? Did you even bother to think about it the SECOND time ? AFTER I had pointed out the problem ? So Mike what you are saying is that you HONESTLY didn't think about what you were saying and didn't understand a simple analogy - EVEN AFTER IT WAS EXPLAINED. That is NOT honest discussion.And IF "apparent age" is true there certainly ARE victims of the decpetion. Much of the Earth's population has been deceived - including virtually all of the people who look into and deal with the actual evidence. And you accuse them of "trickery" because they follow the evidence - and disagree with a view you don't even care about !And I DID consider your "football" analogy. As I stated it assumes that the evidence is only superficial. A better comparison would be the techniques used by the forgers of antiques who also deliberately produce an "appearance of age".And if you REALLY don't care abotu YEC then WHY are you bothering to argue ? You are expressly defending a version of YEC that even many YEC's find unacceptable. WHY ?

Well I see yet another creationist who isn't interested in honest discussion.You see rather than address the question of how good the evidence of antiquity REALLY is you just assume that it isn't that good - and imply that anyone who disagrees does so for no reason other than bias.So no you HAVEN'T shown a problem with my analogy. To do that you would have to SHOW that the evidence of antiquity wasn't good.Indeed you even misrepresent my position - I have NEVER claimed that science is infallible. What I DO claim is that the evidence of antiquity must be explained - and that "apparent age" CANNOT explain it without implying that God is a deceiver.And I have to aks what is the point in asking a question if you are just going to dismiss answers you don't like ?

SO what you are sayng Mike, is that my "problem" is that I want to actually DISCUSS the matter rather than just accepting that you are right and I am wrong - just because you say so.Let me remind you BOTH of Rule 4."Make your points by providing supporting evidence and/or argument. Avoid bare assertions"That's is just what you are doing, ignoring the points I am raising and just asserting that I am wrong because I don't agree with you.And Rule 2"Debate in good faith by addressing rebuttals through the introduction of additional evidence or by enlarging upon the argument. Do not merely keep repeating the same points without further elaboration. "Neither of you will discuss how good the evidence REALLY is which is THE key point. You haven't even answered the evidence I mentioned back in post 2.So are you going to follow the rules and actually engage in discussion ?

Because you are.I am saying that your analogies are invalid BECAUSE they do not reflect the truth of the situation. Indeed as I explained your substition of a blank piece of paper for a forged banknote was completely invalid because it denies that there is ANY significant "appearance of age" so it does not even deal with the situation under discussion. That didn't stop you using it even after I explained exactly why it was invalid.As I say the question of whose analogy is most accurate depends on the actual evidence. But you won't discuss that. I, on hte other hand introduced examples in my initial post. If you want to insist that the evidence ISN'T that good then BY THE RULES you have to back that up. And you, Mike, wouldn't even explicitly say that.So I don't see how you can say that you were following the rules.

But you DIDN'T show that my analogy was invalid.And you are wrong to say that I assume that God is a liar - if you have followed my posts you would have seen that I explciitly stated that I believe that the Universe and the Earth really are old. To assume that God is a liar I would have to assume that they are really young and that there is a FALSE appearance of age. If anyone in this thread assumes that it is you.Now YOU assume that there isn't really much of an appearance of age - without any familiarity with the actual evidence. And YOU assume that practically every astronomer, geologist and palaeontolgist as well as many archaeologists are ruled by bias so that they badly misread the evidence individually and in aggregate.

They'll see you refusing to deal with the evidence or even answering the points I raised.I offer examples of the evidnece of age in Post 2. Do you actually deal with them in your response ?
No.I point out that you didn't in post 13. Do you deal with the evidence THEN ?
No.I point it out AGAIN in post 17. Do you deal with the evidence THEN ?
No.And in post 19.
And I point out the importance of the evidence again in post 22. And post 23. In post 28 I ask you to deal with my original arguments - which you STILL hadn't addressed.
Do you ? No, No, No and No.In post 31 I AGAIN refer you back to my initial post and point out the importance of actually discussing the evidence.And you STILL refused to discuss it. That's EIGHT times you have refused to discuss the actual evidence - despite the fact that your "analogies" RELY on the evidence being weak.THAT is what I am on about.