james1010

So, if he ignored God and his faith and made his decisions based solely on more liberal ideals, would he then be speaking for the entire nation? I'll answer that . . NO. One man cannot speak for an entire nation, the best that one man can do is speak from his heart and the ideals that heart holds. President Bush is doing just that. His belief in God warrants his belief that that God is this nations best hope. James

So, to whom or what are you praying? . . . just curious James

"We feel our reliance on the creator who made us," he said. "We place our sorrows and cares before him, seeking God's mercy." WOW! The Faith it takes to generate a public statement like that, is the type of Faith you can't expect him to separate from any part of his life, whether it be public policy or not.

agreed. BTW, since I'm here, I'll answer your question from another thread: It's much worse to have great weather and be stuck at work , which I take it you're at as well as I. James

Not sure it will ever be possible, but another corny idea might be a nice, smooth as glass, lake.

Happy with your sig. Not happy with being at work all day! James

Weather in Texas sucks out loud, too. BTW, I noticed someone told you this before, but I'm gonna tell you again anyway. I think you want your sig. to read "win or lose " not "win or loose ". James

Nice picture and explanation. Some friends where I've jumped experienced one of these things a while back. The following was copied from the local papers website: Skydivers survive after plane stalls It was not the best of years to be flying a plane or helicopter over Wise County. Three aircraft crashes in the span of a year is the number 10 story of the year. On March 31, a plane carrying 18 skydivers crashed at Skydive Texas east of Decatur about 10 seconds after takeoff. The plane stalled after hitting what pilot Tom Bishop described as a dust devil at about 300 feet off the ground. Five people were flown to Fort Worth hospitals and six more were taken to Decatur, many with broken bones. There were no fatalities. James

North Texas isn't looking very promising.

Not to mention it tastes great and it's less filling. How could you go wrong. Great story! James

Tell me about it! I tried to bail out, or cutaway if you will, a couple times. Then I would check the replies, and couldn't stay out of it. Excellent discussion, though.

This discussion seems to have lost its allure. The replies are getting kind of silly. Are we closing it out or what? Another rainy weekend in DFW James

Bill, You should find this to be an interesting read, a bit lengthy, however: Igneous Cooling Let me know what you think.

Interesting that you brought up the coelacanth, this type of fish, previously known only from fossils, had certain structures in its fins, and for years was thought to have been the ancestor of the amphibians and later all other land animals. Until, ofcourse, in 1938 a living specimen was found off the coast of Africa and others have been found since. Evolutionists' joy turned to consternation when it was seen that soft anatomy was not at all like an amphibian, nor did it live in shallow areas about to crawl out on land. It lives in the deep ocean and uses its stronger fins to navigate in unusual ways, but never to "walk" along the bottom. Today few evolutionists still hold to the coelacanth as an ancestor to land animals. That's a sidetrack, though. Here is how scientist HYPOTHESIZE the supposed event: The colliding object, probably a comet or asteroid, was about 10 km in diameter and weighed 6 x 1014 kg, or nearly a trillion tons. The generic name for such a large impactor from space is a bolide. If this bolide contained 500 ppb (.5 parts per million) of iridium, the total iridium later dispersed around the world would be 300 million kilograms. The object was traveling at a typical space velocity of 20 km/sec (12 miles/sec), several times faster than a bullet. Its total kinetic energy then was dissipated as heat and rock displacement at the point of impact. The release amounted to about 1023 joules, or 108 megatons of TNT. This energy is 10,000 times greater than the world's total arsenal of nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War (Cowen, 1996). The figure is also the approximate total energy released when fragments of comet Shoemaker-Leuy struck the planet Jupiter in 1994. Billions of tons of pulverized theoritically rocks were blown skyward by the Chicxulub impact for miles. As the larger pieces fell back, they heated to incandescence and ignited firestorms on the ground across entire continents. Soot and dust circled the earth, darkening the sun for months or years. Global cooling may have lasted for decades. Photosynthesis ceased and food chains collapsed. Sulfur was injected into the stratosphere, forming sulfuric acid rain. The ozone layer was temporarily destroyed by atmospheric turbulence. Actually, of course, these supposed climatic effects from such a hypothesized collision are very uncertain. Regardless, the scenario sees the dinosaurs, marine reptiles, flying reptiles, and much other life extinguished in a mere instant of geologic time . . . again, you have to ask, why just those species? James

c ya

Fair enough . . although, I disagree as to which purpose of his writing was the actual by-product. I believe it's the other way around.

Sorry, dude, thought we were debating on this thread. Maybe you didn't notice, dude. If you believe Asimov was merely a storyteller, then you do him a great disservice. He was also President of the American Humanist Society, as well as an ardent anti-creationist. His storytelling has done more for humanistic evolutionism than Hawking, Gould and Sagan combined. BTW, his stories were written for the purpose of soliciting his belief, inasmuch as a response from his readers. James

In regards To Asimov, here is a couple of interesting quotes from this great?? mind: "The cosmic egg may be structureless (as far as we know), but it apparently represented a very orderly conglomeration of matter. Its explosion represented a vast shift in the direction of disorder, and ever since, the amount of disorder in the Universe has been increasing." Is it just me, or is he stating that since the BANG, everything has been moving toward disorder? How then do we arrive at the very complex systems around us and in us? Well, here is what he says about it: "The existence of the cosmic egg is, however, itself something of an anomaly. If the general movement of the universe is from order to disorder, how did the order (which presumable existed in the cosmic egg) originate? Where did it come from? I have a hunch that the 'missing mass' required to raise the density to the proper figure will yet be found and that the universe will yet be discovered to oscillate." Asimovs hunch, therefore solves it ALL . . . what great faith people place on this mans hunch. James

There is actually quite a bit of evidence to support a young Earth. I believe wholeheartedly in the Genesis account of origin. But beyond that, it's wonderful to know that there is real scientific data that supports a young earth, and rightly so, for as I said before, if the Bible is the Word of God then scientific processes will support it. I could attempt to paraphrase these evidences, but I'm sure I'd mess it up, besides I'm at work at it would take too long so here is a copy/paste for you to enjoy: Receding Moon It takes but one proof of a young age for the moon or the earth to completely refute the doctrine of evolution. Based upon reasonable postulates, great scope of observational data, and fundamental laws of physics there is proof that the moon and the earth are too young for the presumed evolution to havetaken place. There is an easily understood physical proof that the moon is too young for the presumed evolutionary age. From the laws of physics one can show that the moon should be receding from the earth. From the same laws one can show that the moon would have never survived a nearness to the earth of less than 11,500 miles. That distance is known as the Roche limit.1 The tidal forces of the earth on a satellite of the moon's dimensions would break up the satellite into something like the rings of Saturn. Hence the receding moon was never that close to the earth. The present speed of recession of the moon is known. If one multiplies this recession speed by the presumed evolutionary age, the moon would be much farther away from the earth than it is, even if it had started from the earth. It could not have been receding for anything like the age demanded by the doctrine of evolution. There is as yet no tenable alternative explanation that will yield an evolutionary age of 4 billion years or more for the moon. Here is as simple a proof as science can provide that the moon is not as old as claimed. How does an evolutionist reconcile this proof that the moon is too young for the presumed evolution to have taken place? This known dynamical limit in the earth-moon system is a great problem to knowledgeable evolutionists. Robert C. Humes in his book Introduction to Space Science (John Wiley, 1971) acknowledges the problem and states that "The whole subject of the origin of the moon must be regarded as highly speculative." Dr. Louis B. Slichter, Professor of Geophysics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology treats this problem in great detail and concludes that "the time scale of the earth-moon system still presents a major problem."2 It turns out that the earth-moon tidal friction causes the earth's spin rate to be slowing down. Lord Kelvin used that changing spin rate, assumed an initial molten earth, and proved that the earth could not be a billion years old, or the earth's present shape would be different.3 Hence from theoretical and observational considerations there are two proofs that the earth-moon system can not be as old as a billion years. 1) The earth-moon spacing and recession rate refutes that long age. 2) The shape of the earth refutes that long age. Lunar Dust Depth The prelunar landing predictions of evolutionary scientists gave great concern to the astronauts. Their predictions were that due to a presumed 4.5 billion year age of the moon and the rate of influx of dust and the lunar physical processes of rock break-up, the astronauts might be lost in a great depth of dust on the moon.4 Fortunately the evolutionary predictions of great dust depth were wrong. Our astronauts were not lost in the predicted "quicksand" of age-accumulated dust on the moon. The creationist predictions of only a thin layer of dust were correct. This false prediction from evolutionary scientists lends support to the author's contention that the doctrine of evolution is a barrier to progress in science. Additional support for that contention can be found in the continual negative results of the evolutionary experiments to detect the presumed "evolved life forms" in space. Apparently one of the astronauts considered the lunar receiving laboratory to be a waste of time and money. To disprove the notion of evolved bacteria on the moon he offered to eat some of that dust. One should carefully note that the great successes of the NASA space program, of which we are all proud, were made possible by the tremendous advances in technology, not by evolutionary science. That technology is founded upon the proven laws of physics and chemistry and ingenious developments from the various fields of engineering. Radiometric Evidence of Rapid Creation Dr. Robert V. Gentry has radiometric evidence that the basement rock of the earth was formed in a cool state, not in a molten condition. A cool initial state of the earth gives support to a young age for the earth. His research involves the study of pleochroic halos (colored spheres) produced by the radioactive decay of Polonium 218. He analyzed over one hundred thousand of these halos in granitic rocks which had been taken from considerable depths below land surface and in all parts of the world. Two very important conclusions were drawn from this research 1) The Polonium 218 was primordial, that is to say, this radioactive element was in the original granite. 2) Because the halos can only be formed in the crystals of the granite, and the Polonium 218 half-life is only 3 minutes, the granite had to be cool and crystallized originally. The Polonium 218 would have been gone before molten granite could have cooled. It would take a very long time for a molten earth to cool. The final conclusion can be summarized in this brief quote from one of Gentry’s technical papers: "The simple evidence of the halos is that the basement rocks of the earth were formed solid." "Halos in other minerals can be shown to give equally startling evidence of a young earth."5 One needs to read some of Gentry's technical articles to see how clearly he established his conclusion that the Polonium 218 was primordial. That in itself presents problems to conventional radiometric dating. The conventional radiometric dating postulates would not jibe with this initial state which Gentry has identified. Magnetic Evidence of a Young Earth The known decay in the earth's magnetic field and the inexorable depletion of its energy clearly point to an imminent and inevitable end of the earth's magnetic field. A Department of Commerce publication lists evaluations of the strength of the earth's dipole magnet (its main magnet) since Karl Gauss made the first evaluation in the 1830's. It states that the rate of decrease is about 5% per hundred years. It then states that if the decay continues the magnetic field will "vanish in A.D. 3391."6 This decay has some harmful environmental effects. The earth's magnetic field extends into the space around the earth. This provides a protective shield against cosmic rays and solar wind. The half-life of this decaying magnetic field is 1400 years (meaning that every 1400 years its strength is cut in half). The field strength is now only about one third as strong as it was at the time of Christ. More harmful radiation is penetrating down to the surface of the earth. This is an irreversible degradation of our environment. Horace Lamb predicted this decay in an 1883 theoretical paper on the source of the earth's magnetic field. Looking backward in time, in the light of his theory and the present known decay rate, and assuming the maximum plausible initial strength, puts an age limit on the earth's magnet of only a few thousand years.7 Evolutionary geologists assume that there 'is some type of dynamo mechanism sustaining the earth's magnet. No one has yet come up with an acceptable theory for such a dynamo. That mechanism is supposed to be able to reverse the direction of the earth's magnet. They assume that this magnet has not been decaying continually but has reversed back and forth many times for billions of years. They must hold to a long age or it is the death knell for the whole theory of evolution. Reversal phenomena are "read" into the magnetization of accessible rocks in the crust of the earth. The literature shows real problems and some self-contradictions with those interpretations.8 Conclusion The age of the earth and moon can not be as old as required in the doctrine of evolution, as has been shown when the great laws of physics are applied toobserved large scale phenomena such as: 1) The recession rate of the moon and the Roche limit. 2) The faster earth spin rate in the past. 3) The rate of lunar dust build-up. 4) The decay of the earth's magnetic field. 5) The pleochroic halos in the earth's basement rock. James

Scientific support for the dinosaur-collision hypothesis is not unanimous. Evolutionary paleontologists, especially, question the sudden loss of so many varied species. Most prefer a gradual extinction of life from climatic changes, sea-level variations, or volcanism. Three basic questions will be raised here that are considered within the old-earth time scales. First, why did the alleged impact kill off the dinosaurs while many other forms of life remained healthy? Some of the least mobile creatures (tortoises, snakes, crocodiles) and also the most sensitive to climatic change (birds, fish) are still with us today. Some shallow marine bottom-dwelling invertebrates survived, while others became extinct. Plants also survived the cataclysm in great abundance. Second, the fossil record does not show an instantaneous demise of the dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs died out within the Cretaceous period while others apparently survived well into the Tertiary period, millions of years later in evolutionary thinking (Rigby, et al., 1987; Sloan, et al., 1986). Another major problem is in determining where the K-T boundary itselfactually lies. In certain locations, the shocked quartz grains appear to cover a sedimentary thickness or time span of at least 500,000 years (Courtillot, 1990). Also, in fossil-rich eastern Montana, the iridium layer is found two-three meters above the highest in situ dinosaur remains (Archibold, 1982). In this location, it thus appears that dinosaurs disappeared long before any collision event. Third, it is not certain that Chicxulub is an actual impact site. Practically all the data in support of a collision have alternative explanations. For example, the iridium concentration in the K-T layer could have resulted from volcanic processes. Igneous material includes traces of iridium, especially when derived from the deep mantle (Ganter, 1986). A large region in western India (called the Deccan Traps) experienced massive volcanism at a similar relative time in history. Some experts attribute dinosaur death to climatic events related to this massive outpouring of lava in India. I wish I had been at work yesterday, missed some good debate, hopefully I can respark some of you.

Me, too! However, I have to get out of here (work) for the evening. Check back tomorrow for a reply. cya James

Umm, not to start a new debate or anything, but being a young earth advocate, I'm wondering what major episodes you're refering to. "missed??" are you implying earth was the target, or just the fact that it came close? In any case, "missed'" would be the key word. That's quite a stretch to say the least. Please share your source. James

You've been watching too many movies. I'm sure God considers the trajectories of Asteroids, but most importantly, He considers you. BTW, nice quote from the Bible. James

Well said Sinkster, that truly is the bottom line. Being on the threshold of eternity everytime one exits an aircraft, should cause us to consider and downright worry about the eternal destiny of our friends and family. Jesus commands that we tell them, He doesn't suggest it. That doesn't mean run around all day asking folks if they'r saved, but opportunities often arise where we can share the Gospel in the right way. I try my best not to miss those opportunities. James

no worse than hearing it from a televangelist, I guess.