Sam Harris

Hey Y’all,
    A young earth creationist threw an argument at me that I wasn’t familiar with. Something about the rate at which the oceans salinity changes can determine the age of the earth and that it shows it to be much younger that 4.5 billion years. My initial response was to bring up the dead sea. Is the water in the dead sea older? I did a few google searches and most of the sites I was directed to were clearly run by creationists (Answers in Genesis, Talk Origins etc.) I didn’t have much luck finding info that tore this argument to shreds as I suspect it has been. If anyone has had any experience in the debunking of the ocean salinity dating method I would be grateful for some information. Thanks in advance!

Answers in Genesis is a creationist run website but Talk Origins is not. Talk Origins is the real deal! It’s a great source of real scientific facts on the age of the earth and evolution. I took an oceanography paper last year and I remember the lecturer said that the earth’s oceans were millions of years old (cant remember the exact figure) but I think it is somewhere around 500 million years old.

So I guess this is considerabley younger than 4.5 billion years (which is the age of the earth) but that is only because the oceans as we know them today were formed very slowly from water vapor from volcanoes and also water from comets. Also the early earth used to be very hot on the surface and over time this cooled which allowed oceans to be formed.

As for debating creationists, I find that they will quote this or that statistic that the earth isn’t old or that evolution is wrong. By the time you look up the facts it’s too late they have walked away feeling like they won the argument. I find the best way to debate them is to undermine their religious beliefs. Mention Numbers 31:17,

“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

This coming from the all righeous Moses, who is held up as the pinnacle of morality! The same guy who god revealed himself to, and then gave him the 10 commandments. In reality, the guy was a murderer and probably a rapist.

Marcbass - 13 June 2010 04:12 AM

Hey Y’all,
    A young earth creationist threw an argument at me that I wasn’t familiar with. Something about the rate at which the oceans salinity changes can determine the age of the earth and that it shows it to be much younger that 4.5 billion years. My initial response was to bring up the dead sea. Is the water in the dead sea older? I did a few google searches and most of the sites I was directed to were clearly run by creationists (Answers in Genesis, Talk Origins etc.) I didn’t have much luck finding info that tore this argument to shreds as I suspect it has been. If anyone has had any experience in the debunking of the ocean salinity dating method I would be grateful for some information. Thanks in advance!

Talk Origins takes every creationist argument and rebuttals them one by one.

Here’s your Ocean Salinity rebuttal page:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD221_1.html

This page will reference the argument: http://tccsa.tc/articles/ocean_sodium.html

and the counter:  http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199606/0051.html

Simply search the archives and ask your question and you’ll get the proper response to it.

Unlike most fundy sites, T.O.org publishes the creationist arguments as well.  They have nothing to fear from those people.

Thanks so much y’all!! I made a foolish assumption about the Talkorigins website without investigating it. Suffice it to say I have bookmarked it.
    Your point about getting into it with creationists is valid, however I find the endeavor to be helpful to me. It helps me distill my own opinions when I am forced to explain myself. I rely heavily on what I have learned from listening to Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, and Shermer so clearly I am in the imitative stage of debating. I go into each argument knowing that the chances of getting someone to drop their irrational beliefs based on my abilities as a debater are slim. However, I know that my own deconversion was brought about in large part by having a few people amplify my cognitive dissonances to such a level that I had to rethink my irrational beliefs, and eventually drop them. I am just trying to plant seeds in the minds of some individuals I come in contact with in the hopes that they will confront their own bat-shit beliefs and wake up.
        Again, many thanks for your assistance!