Ooookay now...

to add to the silliness espoused by the religious groups which claim the earth is only as old as biblical times allow (6,000-10,000 years), there is also this group which holds to the concept that the earth is flat. Of course few people take them seriously, but apparently since their group grows each year some do.

Goto:

Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious? | Flat Earth Society | LiveScience

Here is the link to the one about the last dinosaur dying off in the 20th Century, a timeline according to creationists. Be sure to enlarge the timeline so you can see it completely. I shared this with "LRusso" a while back but forgot to add it to the FFZ.

Goto:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-09/infographic-geologic-timescale-creationists

 

Clint - you have time to celebrate the 6015th birthday of the planet earth - born 10th November 4004 BC (Bishop Ussher) - you need a lot of candles

 

Voyager 1 beams back images of Earth as a tiny dot as it prepares for interstellar space | Mail Online

This does not do it justice - a couple of night ago BBC2 showed a programme on Voyager whcih has recently exited the Solar System after 40 plus years flight.

The picture shows earth but on the TV programme there were a sequence of about 20 such shots which puts Earth as less than one pixel in about 2 foot - makes you wonder why squabble over such a small bit of real estate.

 

Location, Location, Location!

 

If you start a sentence with "I believe," you can say just about anything you want and PCers will demand you respect it...

 

The problem here is both sides are so entrenched in their "Dogma" that they miss the bigger picture. First let me give my frame of reference I am a Christian, but by training a scientist (my degree is in Biology). I see the flaws in both sides arguments.

-Creationists are wrong because they are basing their beliefs on the genealogical work done by a 17th century monk, James Ussher, Bishop in the Church of Ireland, from 1625 to 1656. Their first mistake is basing their beliefs upon the work of a man and not on the Bible.

-Many atheist/agnostic persons in the scientific community attempt to show that the Bible is incorrect by comparing the timeline provided by scientific research against the timeline created by the Bishop. This is what the timeline chart does in the link provided by Clint. They are trying to prove the biblical account is wrong by comparing it against James Ussher's work. Again, they are using a secondary source for their argument when they should be using the primary source. Furthermore, they are ignoring variables that they would account for if they were doing scientific research, instead of trying to discredit a belief system.

I could spend days explaining why neither side is entirely correct, they should be focusing on the areas in which they agree and not on trying to focus on discrediting the other side.
-Time is an artificial construct, created by man, to provide a framework for us to use. Creationists, why are you using a human based concept to prove your point? Scientists in the anti-creationist camp, why are you using a human based concept to place parameters on the biblical account.
-I think we can all agree that the biblical account was written by people barely out of the stone age and colored by their perceptions. Scientists, when researching and trying to explain written accounts by other non-biblical sources use reason to explain inconsistencies by placing the account in the context of the writer. The centaur written about in many Mediterranean myths is easily explained by placing it in the context of the writer (and scientific researchers routinely do this). Instead of totally discounting the written account, it is explained as the writers perception of the first time they see men on horseback. Not an illogical explaination.
-Even within modern science we do not understand things precisely. Our scientific understanding is constantly being revised based upon new data/discoveries, placing what we do know in a new frame of reference. It is the scientists perception of a particular subject area that was flawed, not a flaw in the underlying subject being studied. We scoff at a monk trying to "precisely" date things based upon a written account that may or may not contain a complete genealogy, yet we try and state with scientific certainty that we know the real answer when our methods themselves are relatively impercise. We cannot, even impercisely, radiocarbon date something older than 60,000 years due to background [SUP]14[/SUP]C contamination. Samples taken before that time are expressed in BP dates (before present), then even the BP date varies because of fluctuations in background [SUP]14[/SUP]C. From Wikipedia: "A raw BP date cannot be used directly as a calendar date, because the level of atmospheric [SUP]14[/SUP]C has not been strictly constant during the span of time that can be radiocarbon dated. The level is affected by variations in the cosmic ray intensity which is in turn affected by variations in the Earth's magnetosphere.[SUP][18][/SUP] In addition, there are substantial reservoirs of carbon in organic matter, the ocean, ocean sediments (see methane hydrate), and sedimentary rocks. Changes in the Earth's climate can affect the carbon flows between these reservoirs and the atmosphere, leading to changes in the atmosphere's [SUP]14[/SUP]C fraction."

Also samples that should be contemporaneous can vary widely in their BP date. Say a future scientist was testing a sample, using our current testing techniques, and testing something that came from 1100 CE, when the population of China under the Song Dynasty reached 100 million people. The sample comes back with a date of +/- 1100 years, a spread of 2200 years from the sample date (not an uncommon result). This scientist could reach the conclusion that the Song Dynasty existed in 2012 and that China reached a population of 100 million today instead of in 1100 CE. We know that the Song dynasty ceased to exist in 1279 and China has a population of 1,347,350,000 today. Quite a variance, is it not? And an inaccurate conclusion. Or you could infer that the crucifiction of Christ and the Crusades were contemporaneous events. We are an arrogant species and we know much less than we think we do. Many years in the future, if human knowledge continues to progress, many of current beliefs will probably be viewed in much the same way we view the beliefs of our ancient peoples.
I started by saying time is an artificial construct. How long is a day to a being or intelligence that to us is infinate? "Our days" are based upon the time it takes our sun to orbit our insignificant little planet. Our years on the change of seasons and a solar year. Our life times are based upon a few decades of "our years". On the scale of the universe how long would a day be? Can't use the light year because that is based upon the distance light travels in one Julian year (another artificial construct), even light years would be different if we based them upon the Gregorian year or some other year measurement. If the Bible is, as it's authors claim, based upon knowledge imparted by a higher being, and written in terms of the author's frame of reference, do the things it says and what science currently knows, really conflict? The Bible in places equates a day in "God" terms with a thousand years in man's terms. But then again that was written at a time a man could not percieve a million, much less a billion or a trillion.
I personally think the whole argument is a tempest in a teapot. The one side (creationists) trying to place literal hard numbers and current contexts on something (the Bible) that has to be viewed from the perspective of the authors that wrote it. Then you have a segment of the scientific community that spends more time trying to refute religious beliefs than they do perfecting their own knowledge. Neither side willing to admit the imperfect nature of their beliefs.

Just my two cents.

 

My Mum still calls anyone even vaguely hippy-ish a flat-earther. Been around a fair while.

Once had an absolutely hilarious conversation with a devotee at a Fortean gig.
Best beard I've ever seen, and a twinkle in his eye...

Their website:
The Flat Earth Society

~A

 

The Earth is not flat. It must be round in order to support my hollow Earth theory.

 

Who let those guys in!

 

The great German thinker Alfren Von Schronist in the year 1618 proved that the earth was indeed square. But because the British did not want the Germans to compete with them in the race to colonize the planet, fabricated the round earth theory. All the maps were changed to reflect the British bamboozle.

The Germans then couldn't find the four corners of the earth where they had set up colonies to control trade and hence world domination.

This was what really the cause of WWI and WWII.

The Germans are still smoldering about this and are considering a WWIII in order to get back their corners.

KTK

 

Now that is funny Poppy.

 

Hollow earth theory? Yeah, that's been around a long time, too: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/123/123-h/123-h.htm

 

You know, I have heard somewhere that Poppy is occasionally correct.

 

Pshaw! I refuse to believe that, there has been no proof to substantiate your claim! Sir, I call thee a knave and a charlatan, and all manner of other high-sounding insult-ish names! Had I a herring, I should slap you with it!

Monty Python- Fish Slapping Dance! - YouTube

 

Now the "Hollow Earth" thing must be true, I saw the movie! Two different versions. Besides, didn't the Germans keep secret UFO bases there during and after WWII?

 

The UFO bases are on the moon, not inside the earth.

 

Don't bother: it's going to be the end of our flat, hollow, 6500 year old world, on dec 21st 2012 anyway

 

How foolish of me. First I thought, how can that be? We've sent men to the moon and they didn't see anything. Then I remembered. We never went to the moon. It was all an elaborate hoax and the lunar excursions were filmed on a sound stage in Arizona or New Mexico. Can't remember which.