BISTON BETULARIA

[Mark Walker]

I hope this dialogue is pleasing to most, because I feel like the proverbial
laboratory rat that is continually enticed to bounce of the walls of a maze
- to the great pleasure of some.

Well, what can I say?  I will forever continue to emerge from my
butterflying paradise whenever the question is begged: "Are there really any
creationists out there?".  I am confident only in this:  "As for me and my
house, we will serve the Lord".

When I face Him some day, I will look forward to His greeting:  "Well done,
my good and faithful servant".  I will avoid the alternative greeting:  "I
never knew you".

Kenelm wrote:

> 
> 	Try this one: If you list _all_ the radioactive 
> nuclides with half
> lives longer than 1 million years, and then delete from that 
> list all those
> which are being produced by ongoing processes (radioactive 
> decay of more
> massive nuclides, cosmic radiation, etc.) you will find 
> something interest-
> ing: all those with half lives of 80 million years or longer 
> are present
> in the earth--all those with half lives less than 80 million years are
> absent. Either the earth is much older than 80 million years, 
> or we have
> a most amazing coincidence indeed (or God is trying to trick 
> us into think-
> ing the earth is more than 6000 years old).
> 
> 

Well, Ken, I don't think that God is trying to trick us.  I do think there
is another who is, however.

On the other hand, as you probably guessed, evidence from radioactive
isotopes does not intrigue me to doubt God.  I studied atomic physics for 6
years, and operated nuclear reactor plants for 4 more, and I was thankful
that we were able to so soundly understand the frequencies involved with
spontaneous and induced fission.  It allowed me to steam my ship quite
reliably from one liberty port to another.  Yeehaa!

You are assuming here that the earths processes (and time constants) have
always been identical to what we see today.  Clearly, when stuff is created
out of nothing there is more at work than that which we are familiar with.
While I would like to have been around during the creation of the universe,
I'm fairly certain that my fleshly body would not have been able to survive.
Therefore, I'm glad he designed me after He was finished with the
heavenlies.  I don't agree with Jorge Manuel Bizarro - I don't think God is
still actively creating.  His plan for pro-creation is busy at work (and
it's a marvelous machine indeed), but His creative energies I believe are
dormant - and thus we and the universe are in decay.  That goes for all of
the elements that He created that occasionally split and spew, also.
Fascinating stuff, isn't it?  I, for one, look forward to sitting at His
feet while He explains it all.

Mark Walker.