• T156@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    The problem with that argument is that it falls into the Last Thursdayist problem.

    It could just as well be argued that the lead was created instantly in that state, or mid-decay.

  • Mercuri@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    I typically use the fact that there are trees older than 4000 years old based on tree ring data. Or that there are stars in the sky further than 4000 light years away that we can see in the sky.

    That usually makes them say something like how their God created an world that was already aged. So I usually counter with the fact that would make their God a lier and deceiver.

    Some hold firm and say God did it to test faith. Others back pedal and try to blame it on Satan. That Satan scattered all this false evidence just to make us question the notion that Earth is 4000 years old to make people lose faith in God. And then I have to laugh at how stupid their argument is and how weak their God is. Naturally no amount of evidence or logic will make them change their belief.

    • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      The important thing is, you’re compelling people to examine their pre-existing beliefs. They won’t change their beliefs during your conversation, because deprogramming takes time. But the more seeds of doubt you plant, the better the chances are that some will germinate.

      I find that the most effective way to encourage people to question themselves is to discuss things calmly and in good faith, through in-person conversations. Challenging people to “convert me” has been surprisingly fruitful - after all, I honestly would love to believe that a benevolent deity is looking out for us all. (As well, tons of believers would equally love to be the one who “shows [you or me] the light.”) I want them to provide compelling evidence that can change my mind.

      Approaching the conversation in this fashion not only challenges the “missionary” types to think harder, but it also shifts the onus onto them to convince you. If they’ve never thought critically about their message, this kind of conversation may introduce questions that stick with them long after it’s over.

      • kitnaht@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        And even better because they start to come to their own thought-out conclusions. There’s less baggage in the way for them to eventually work their way through it. Especially when they’ve got to convince you - because mysteriously they always jump to all of this “proof” to show you.

        It doesn’t happen immediately, and if you try to speed it up you’ll just cause them to reverse course.

        I’ll sprinkle a little bit of … my own confusion into the mix? As an example, I’ll remain interested, but be like “wait, you said X but then you said Y - doesn’t that contradict X?” I’ll let them explain and not fight them on it, but send them off with a warm smile.

        Not everyone will break free of the programming, but some will - and that’s all I can hope for.

  • yarr@feddit.nl
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    24 hours ago

    Here’s the bad faith argument:

    At the moment of creation, God placed some partially decayed metals on the planet to fool the non-believers.

    This is basically why the existence of dinosaur bones doesn’t bother them either – they just hand-wave it away.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      Counter handwave, any god that would do that is a jerk who doesn’t deserve worship. (Actually like 99% of the shit most faiths deities do falls into that category.)

      • yarr@feddit.nl
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        20 hours ago

        Bad faith argument:

        In the holy book, inspired by this god, he tells you he DOES deserve worship. Furthermore, were you to ignore his advice, he will punish you eternally.

        • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          Yeah, well, if that mf does actually exist, I’ll feel real vindicated as I scream in agony for eternity, for holding the opinion that a God that needs to threaten me into worshipping him is not benevolent at all !

          • oo1@lemmings.world
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            18 hours ago

            If I were god I might do all sorts of shit to test the supposed intelligence of my creations. That might include including telling them “do some pointless thing, or else”.

            It might interest me to see if they’re capable of reasoning or testing to determine that the task is pointless and the threat is empty. Probably not, but its hilarious for them to think they matter to me; It’s like a videogame to me.

            It only takes 6 days for me to start whole a new game. I’m probably bored of it long before now or at least well ino my hundred and somethingth play-through light-years away. I prefer keeping the dinosaurs because they’re way cooler than humans.

            • DeanFogg@lemm.ee
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              18 hours ago

              …But I killed the dinosaurs because I watched a brontosaurus eat its own shit

  • gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    19 hours ago

    We obviously live in a matrix/simulated world, and it can’t be older than 50 years, because before that, computers didn’t exist. Checkmate christians.

    /jk

  • ClassifiedPancake@discuss.tchncs.de
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    24 hours ago

    You can throw as much science at them as you want. God could have just created everything in whatever state he wanted to. Same thing with the virgin mary discussion. Who cares if it makes sense scientifically, god can just make a fertilized egg appear. How lame would god be if he could not do that? This is the basis christians start from, so why even bother trying to debate that?

  • sweetpotato@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    I genuinely don’t understand how uranium can exist a priori in this argument but lead not? I might be missing something.

    • Pazuzu@midwest.social
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      1 day ago

      The original post only gave half the explanation. It’s not that lead exists in general, it’s that lead exists within zircon crystals.

      Under normal circumstances that would be impossible, zircon crystals strongly reject lead atoms as they form. There’s no way to stuff lead into the crystal lattice in the quantity we find them there. But uranium and zircon go together just fine, we just have to wait for it to decay into lead. The trouble is it takes ~4.5 billion years for just half of those uranium atoms to turn into lead. So any zircon crystal we find with half as much lead as uranium must be roughly that old

      • xx3rawr@sh.itjust.works
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        8 hours ago

        This the explanation I’m looking for. OP didn’t make sense to me, lead could be created in supernovae and shit just like every other heavy element

      • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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        24 hours ago

        But that still doesn’t change the belief that a creator could have created the universe in whatever state it currently exists in. That’s why these arguments never go anywhere with hard core young earth creationists. It’s also not worth the energy arguing with them because they often believe that anyone trying to convince them otherwise is an antichrist trying to lead them astray.

        • DontTakeMySky@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          If God created it in that state then they should be curious to understand that creation. They look at rainbows as the beauty of creation but not the fact that lead exists in these crystals. It’s all equally beautifully complex. So why not try to understand it.

          If God made the world look like it was created billions of years ago there must be something worth learning from that, even if you believe it was snapped into existence 6000 years ago.

          • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            Tbf for your specific example, rainbows are specifically mentioned and “explained” in the Bible. After drowning all life on Earth except for Noah and a bunch of inbred animals, God sent the wainbow down as a pwomise that he would nevew do it again 👉👈

        • Billegh@lemmy.world
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          14 hours ago

          It doesn’t. It was never the point of his post. You can still believe that if you want. His reasoning for why he doesn’t is outlined there.

          It comes down to whether or not you find processes that we have researched and documented time and time again to be compelling evidence, or you want to believe it is a practical joke (while reductive, it is pretty much that argument breaks down to being).

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        “God put all of that there, and then made it work to ensure we had quality lead gasoline, pipes and paint to poison our brains with cause freedom.”

        • Comment105@lemm.ee
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          1 day ago

          Is that what were doing now? Regurgitating stereotypical insults on a post where the “pro science” side dropped the ball and leaned on a ridiculously stupid misunderstanding to disprove something stupider?

          You all fucking disappoint me.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    the answer completely disregards the fact that people who even remotely understand how these things work wouldn’t believe stupid shit in the first place. there are so many ways for this guy to just dismiss this.

    how would you even know, you can’t have studied these for billions of years

    who says lead only can exist in this manner

    what if this is true but god also made lead along with the earth

    etc etc… this is very weak if the goal is really try to convince this guy to look into some things rather than smell your own farts.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      There are many scientists who are strict belivers. They just move the act of creation to the big bang and it’s still in gods plan.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        yeah the insistence that creation must mean it happens in an instant is just demonstrably pointless. we already say god created us. and we know we don’t come into existence in full adult form in an instant. we have a whole birth-baby-toddler-kid-teen-adult transformation. and before that we know there is a whole process in the womb. so when god creates a person he puts an entire process into motion. why can this not be the case for the entire universe? why not evolution? are they saying that god couldn’t have thought of a system? I find it weird.

  • nialv7@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    this argument isn’t going to work on someone who believes god created said lead… and also, pretty sure not all lead was created from nuclear decay.

    i get dunk on people feels satisfying, but this is just bad science communication through and through

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      2 days ago

      I had a conversation with a woman who strongly believed God put the dinosaur bones there to test our faith.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 day ago

        what an idiot, clearly god put the bones in the ground because dinosaurs were his favourite creation and he wanted us to know about them. Had he not put them there we’d have no idea, and he’d be very sad.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      Also, the half life is when half of it decays. Some of it is constantly decaying. We don’t need to wait for the half life to see any of it. The ratios would be totally off if there was enough of it to get the amount of lead we have right now, but some would exist. When the math is that complex, it’s not going to change anyone’s mind who believes what a magic book (written by regular humans) says. Nothing will, be if you want a chance it has to be something simple and obvious.

    • rockerface 🇺🇦@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      Some lead might have been created from supernova fusion, probably. I’m not actually sure if it’s the right isotope or if lead even has radioactive isotopes that we know of

    • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      There are exactly 1.6 x 10^18 kilograms of lead on earth but every three minutes or so a brand new gram is welcomed into existence due to the radioactive decay of uranium.

      Calculate that flat earthers!

  • Linsensuppe@feddit.org
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    1 day ago

    Can someone explain to me why lead HAS to come from another element? Why cant it just… exist?

    • shrugs@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      [email protected] explained above:

      The original post only gave half the explanation. It’s not that lead exists in general, it’s that lead exists within zircon crystals.

      Under normal circumstances that would be impossible, zircon crystals strongly reject lead atoms as they form. There’s no way to stuff lead into the crystal lattice in the quantity we find them there. But uranium and zircon go together just fine, we just have to wait for it to decay into lead. The trouble is it takes ~4.5 billion years for just half of those uranium atoms to turn into lead. So any zircon crystal we find with half as much lead as uranium must be roughly that old

    • asdfbla@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 day ago

      A normal Star, which does not end it’s life with a supernova, can only produce elements up to Iron with normal fusion. All other elements are produced by e.g. supernovas, which tend to produce heavier elements initially (due to the forces involved) hat decay over time.

      At least that is my pseudoscience knowledge about this

      • Whorehoarder@lemmynsfw.com
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        1 day ago

        Actually He started with lead. All life comes from lead. Praise the lead. It’s not lead poisoning, it’s lead salvation! Also Led Zeppelin is Christian rock and spreading the gospel.