• Dinosaurs & the Flood
• RadioCarbon Dating Flawed
• Gap Theory

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Since "saurus" means "lizard", and we have observed on other occasions that some species of lizard continue growing in size, the longer number of years they live...indeed, it seems apparent that there -WERE- dinosaurs after the flood.
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READER QUESTION:
Are you saying that the Great Flood may not have been worldwide? Or that not all creatures were destroyed in the Flood? Or do you think that Noah carried the dinosaurs on his ark, and if so, how many species do you think he could have had?

VW ANSWER:
Wouldn't it make sense he carried them in the ark? while they were yet -young-, and thus... "small"? But, of course, Scripture is quite clear that the flood was "worldwide". "All" the "hills" were covered (Gen7:19), and the "mountains" were covered. (vs20) And "all" living things that lived by breathing..that weren't saved in the ark..died. (vs22)

READER QUESTION:
"Carbon dating is flawed."
Amen to that, but can you explain how? I've always wondered if it has something to do with an acceleration of carbon remnants that make it appear to be older than it really is. Something like the depletion rate of uranium - the older it gets, the more rapid the rate of depletion? I just have never understood how carbon dating is supposed to work.

VW ANSWER:
Well...we addressed this a couple weeks ago. If conditions were different before and after the flood, due to the collapse of the water canopy (Gen1:6-7), such a collapse would have changed the filtration of radiation energy. We speculated that when Noah got drunk after the flood, perhaps that was the first they 'discovered' fermentation? Before the flood people lived over 900 years. After the flood, it resolved downwards to 100-and-less. If the aging process changed, and fermenation came into existence...certainly the processes that leave the residues that they measure with carbon dating would have also changed. I'm no scientist to know everything about carbon dating...but this certainly makes sense, yes?

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A subscriber (from Brazil?) sent the following on Carbon Dating. This is stuff I've read in the past, but never remember all the details in a form to be able to regurgitate to others. A good supplement supporting what we have been saying about our "young" earth. Pasted 'as-received':

Regarding Radio Carbon Dating. Simplefied explanation:

Radiocarbon, C14 is an isotope of C12. C14 is generated in nature in the upper atmosphere by neutrons bombardment of the nucleus of Nitrogen. The Van Allen belt shields the earth from this bombardment from outer space. The intensity of the Van Allen belt is closely related to the earth's magnetic field. The earth's magnetic is apparently decaying rapidly. [VW Editor: And I've been reading some things lately that say the magnetic poles are about to reverse again; that on some parts of the globe the process has already begun.] For example, when Christ was born it was approximately three times as strong as today. At the other hand "the waters which were above the firmament" could have a cosmic ray shielding power equivalent to 1 meter thick Lead plate. The influx of cosmic rays, which includes neutrons, could have been close to zero before the Flood. Cosmic rays are the prime cause for aging. The conditions before the Flood would provide long life for living organisms and nearly avoid the generation of C14 in the atmosphere.

The radiocarbon dating method presumes that the present C14 generation rate was the same since thousands, or millions, years back, and that the decay rate (C14 has a half life time of about 5740 years) is stabilized (equal) with the generation rate.

All breathing organisms inhal, besides Oxigen, Nitrogen and rare gases, Carbon dioxide (CO2). Some of the CO2 is formed from C14, in the same proportion that C12 and C14 are encountered in today's atmosphere. After dying the organisms stop breathing and CO2 is not renewed in the organism. The C14 in the dead body's starts decaying and the CO2 generated from C14 starts decreasing. If a fossil contains half of the C14 from that of a living organism it is dated 5740 years old!

But, if the zero C14 of the pre Flood condition would have been considered, a fossil from before the flood would have a C14 content near zero at the time it died and would show very old by today's dating processes. (You find all this in Dr. Henry Morris and associate's books at ICR).

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READER QUESTION:
And what about the Gap Theory? I mean, if you're going to stir up this ant hill, why not go for broke? As I understand it, something cataclysmic happened in the earth's history between Gen.1:1 and Gen. 1:2.

VW ANSWER:
Who says? Is there a verse 'missing' between 1 & 2? (tongue-in-cheek)

READER QUESTION:
The earth being "void" - "void" being translated as being in chaos, as if some event cause horrific damage

VW ANSWER:
Not necessarily. "void" is likely the same kind of void one finds on the moon, mars, saturn, etc. Any planetoid that simply exists...but nothing resemlbing 'life' exists on it. It sits there, 'empty'...which is what 'void' means. "not occupied, empty, containing nothing" The word "Void" does not, by definition, presume some sort of catastrophe.

READER COMMENT:
(like a huge asteroid crashing and causing the dust bowl that choked off the sunlight

VW ANSWER:
All those things can be explained by the Flood.

READER COMMENT:
and killed off the dinosaurs (another theory of their disappearance).

VW ANSWER:
But, this mailing you are replying to...we know they still (at least some of them) existed even until Job.

READER COMMENT:
Or, like a war in the heavens, in which the earth was horribly damaged and creation was suffering.

VW ANSWER:
These are theories not corroborated with Scripture. Some theologians take prophecy and turn them into an imagined "history" to suit their theories, because they can't let go of the world's theories of uniformitariasm-based evolution. If a person listens to those theories, then they are calling God a liar, and the Scriptures 'false'. When one reads Genesis ch1, it is -quite- clear that creation took place in 6 sunrise/sunset days. God created the heavens and the earth...and earth, until God started focusing on it, was like all the rest of the planets out there..."void". So God chose earth, to make it into a habitation for life...which made it become un-void. Yes? And considering this fact, man can just stop 'searching' for -life- "out-there". There is none. There is only life on this earth. As 'fun' as all these sci-fi outer space adventures may be, in expanding the imaginations (I also personally enjoy them), in actuality they are all based on Darwinian evolution...the theory that, if evolution took place here...then it just as easily could "out-there-someplace", too. But it didn't...here or there. Period.

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