• Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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    20 hours ago

    I once had a friend who was a Jehovah’s Witness who tried to argue that carbon dating was junk science …

    • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
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      20 hours ago

      Most religious idiots argue carbon dating is junk science or fake. Its like the single most commonality between every cult member.

      My boss for example fully believes that the earth is 6000 years old and that carbon dating isn’t real. Because and I quote “I am required by my faith to believe the earth is 6000 years old for it is in the Bible. If I do not believe it I will go to hell”.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        12 hours ago

        My boss for example fully believes that the earth is 6000 years old and that carbon dating isn’t real. Because and I quote “I am required by my faith to believe the earth is 6000 years old for it is in the Bible. If I do not believe it I will go to hell”.

        I wonder if your boss makes any distinction in their mind between truly believing something and telling everybody you believe it’s true.

        • Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
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          6 hours ago

          My boss USE to “believe” in science. But he doesn’t want to go to hell. So he actively now chooses to “believe” and follow his faith.

          He is very clear on that fact. He’s even able to explain rather well a lot of for lack of a better word. Sciencey things.

          But he’s willfully and actively choosen to stop “believing” in that.

          • Zink@programming.dev
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            1 hour ago

            I wonder if he’s ever heard of Pascal’s Wager or the 800 reasons it doesn’t make sense.

            You should tell him that the non-abrahamic god YOU believe in will not only send you to hell for anything less than 100% belief, but will curse your entire family/ancestors/descendants to the same fate regardless of their faith and deeds.

      • tyler@programming.dev
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        19 hours ago

        There is zero requirement for that in the Bible, that person is just an idiot who can’t understand things.

      • filcuk@lemmy.zip
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        18 hours ago

        The thing is, if you’re an all mighty god, you can create earth today to look like it’s been here for billions of years, so these arguments are silly from the religious side. You can argue the method, but not the science.

      • Kacarott@aussie.zone
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        19 hours ago

        I grew up around young earth creationists, and was taught at school that carbon dating is inaccurate to the point of uselessness past a couple thousand years. But interestingly they did not believe in hell at all. (They just believe all non believers will be burned to death once, with finality. Not forever)

        • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          What if you die before the rapture? Do you have a short afterlife that’s just burning to your second, final death or do you squeak by with no afterlife and no burning?

          • Kacarott@aussie.zone
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            15 hours ago

            It’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure it was weirdly complicated, like

            1. Jesus comes down
            2. All the dead believers are brought back to life
            3. All believers are taken to heaven
            4. Non believers are left on earth doing their own thing
            5. 1000 years later, Jesus comes back to earth, raises everyone else back from the dead, then burns everyone/everything
            6. Jesus moves heaven back to earth, which is now perfect

            … Or something like that? Hard to tell which parts I got taught and which parts I hallucinated in a fever at some point

            Edit: I looked it up and I am shocked at how well I remember it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_eschatology#Eschatological_events

            • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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              46 minutes ago

              sooo zombie apocalypse is started by zombie jesus as a prelude to the rapture? are we at zombie apocalypse 1 or 2?

    • BillyClark@piefed.social
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      19 hours ago

      Young Earth creationists have a special response that can be used to get around any problems. “That’s just the way that God made it.”

      So dinosaur bone fossils are down there not because an ancient animal died, but because God put the bones there like that.

      When you carbon date something, if it’s measured age is too large, then God made it already partially decayed when he made it.

      There’s no need to debate science, then. So why do they say science is wrong, when it does zero good? I think it’s because they are morons.

      • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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        10 hours ago

        Yup, that’s what I was taught too. Midwest ultra conservative area. You can’t argue science with them because they aren’t in a science state of mind. To them science is only trying to disprove God, that’s the only purpose. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that science doesn’t care about god, and that spirituality can ebb and flow with science.

      • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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        10 hours ago

        No, no, no. What actually happened was, Noah rounded up two of every creature to put on the ark in preparation for the great flood. But the dinosaurs – who were totes alive at the same time as humans – didn’t get the memo. So, Noah shrugged and was like, “Oh well. You guys aren’t going to fit anyways. Sayonara.”

        • CordialCephalopod@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          I was at the Creation Museum and Ark experience this past weekend. Wild place. According to them, there were dinos on the boat. Baby ones

      • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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        16 hours ago

        Ahh yes, the trickster god running around with nothing better to do than bad faith tricks to getchya, completely plausible and definitely lines up with his general modus operandi from the rest of the bible!

        • BillyClark@piefed.social
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          5 hours ago

          You’ve put me in a situation where I feel compelled to apologize for god’s actions. I don’t think this would necessarily mean he was doing this to be a malicious trickster.

          If he made it obvious, then you could scientifically prove that the Earth was 6000 years old, which would be proof that the Bible was the actual truth, and then it wouldn’t be a matter of faith. The Christian god places faith above almost everything else, so if you take away the faith and prove god exists, that ruins everything. So to save your soul, god has to put misleading evidence so that you can still have faith.

          Of course, the real reason religions need faith is because that’s the tool that the religious leaders use to exert power and control over the people they’re tricking. And of course, that makes young earth creationists the biggest suckers in a sea of suckers.

          • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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            38 minutes ago

            lol, if god just wanted faith he could just build everything as is. He’s not turning up (except when he does) and proving his existence so misleading evidence is not required. A test of faith would be normal bad things happening (which he just lets happen) and believers continuing their belief in spite of it.

            No, hiding misleading evidence is definitely a malicious trickster god action. Turns out Abraham’s god is actually just Loki without his funny hat and wearing a beard. The funny hats he makes his reps on earth wear is evidence of this as well.

            • BillyClark@piefed.social
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              15 minutes ago

              I think that if god wants faith, all he has to do is preprogram it into us.

              Instead, he takes this very circuitous route where he gives us the ability to reason, which works for every topic except religion. Only for religion, we need to throw that ability to reason aside.

              Who could look at this creation and see anything but perfection?

        • khannie@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          Had to look this one up. Hitchhiker’s guide character for others like me…

          Slartibartfast is a Magrathean and a designer of planets.[2] His favourite part of the job is creating coastlines, the most notable of which are the fjords found on the coast of Norway on planet Earth,[3] for which he won an award.

          • icelimit@lemmy.ml
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            17 hours ago

            Yup. He made all the fossils and carbon ratios and everything.