Here's an argument that I heard from my dad years ago that I haven't seen anywhere else regarding creation and the reason fossils and radioactive decay exist. My dad was for most of his life a normal creationist, the nut job kind that everyone knows is nutty, but he really is a smart guy, so he's had to give up a lot of the fantasy creationist stuff as he learns more. I really do believe this is a last-ditch argument on his part to hang on to creationism. Here goes:

"You know about the rings in trees, that you can tell the age of a tree from the rings, right?"

"yeah..."

"Well, when God created trees, would they have had rings in them?"

"hmm... I guess not."

"... NO, you would assume the trees would have rings just like normal trees. Now would those rings have meant anything?"

"Well, first of all, YOU assumed that they would have rings, not me."

The point of his argument was that even though there are fossils, radioactive decay, etc. that reveal an ancient age for the earth, they don't necessarily mean that the earth is that old. Several years later he gave a sermon in our church on the topic, and the basic message was, "god made clothes for Adam and Eve, tree rings, etc... God put the fossils there."

Although the tree ring idea was interesting, it's easy to see how rediculous this argument is. I haven't discussed this with my dad, since religion is a pretty touchy subject with him, but I can think of a few things to say.

- Do you believe in using forensic science in order to catch criminals?

- Why would God bother making our planet look so old? Just to fool us? Test our faith?

- If God created us 6,000 years ago with all this "evidence" of an old earth, he could have just as well have created us one second ago, with all our memories intact, photos already made, etc.

So, anyone ever encountered this kind of thing before? I'm sure there are plenty of you out there. Let me know what the hell you would say so something like that.

Thanks,

ispeakmetal