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Feedback 2010
Plenty of time
For oil reserves, for distant starlight to reach the earth, and for God (who created
time)
Published: 18 December 2010(GMT+10)
Oil reserves have been ‘running out’ for over 100 years, yet the oil reserves are
much bigger than is often thought.
CMI’s Dr
Jonathan Sarfati and Dr David Catchpoole
answer questions about whether oil is a renewable resource, a skeptic’s misunderstanding
of creationist arguments about distant starlight, and how God can be outside time.
F.S. from Australia writes:
Dear Sir / Madam,
Re: oil formation
I have just been reading an article on ‘In The Days’ (which is a Biblical
Prophesy site) about oil not being a fossil fuel and not being finite.
Ref: [ed.: references deleted as per feedback rules]
I have searched your information and have only found that some oil can be made from
other rocks, like shale, but not that it is continually being made.
Could you please comment on the ‘renewability’ and ‘finiteness’
of oil?
from F.S.
CMI’s Dr Jonathan Sarfati responds:
Dear F
CMI as an apolitical organization can’t comment on the politics, but as for
renewable oil, the late Cornell astronomer Thomas Gold (1920–2004) claimed
that oil is a ‘renewable primordial soup continually manufactured by the earth
under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward
the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin
dating back to the dinosaurs.’ (see
Gushing oil surprise)
This could explain the hydrocarbons on Saturn’s moon Titan (Saturnian
surprises and Titan’s
non-fossil fuel).
I don’t know if he’s right, but it’s intriguing.
About the alleged finiteness of oil, even if Gold was wrong, there are other points
to consider.
First, claims of “running out of oil” have been going on for well over
a century. In 1885, the US Geological Survey said there was almost no chance of
discovering oil in Canada. In 1920, the director of the USGS claimed that the US
had reached peak production, but in 1948, the production was four times the 1920
rate. At the end of 1944, proven worldwide reserves of crude oil were estimated
at 51 billion barrels. By 2002, the official figure for proven reserves was now
up to 1,266 billion barrels, despite our “addiction to oil”.
Second, oil reserves are not just about stuff in the ground, but how economical
it is to attract the oil. If oil becomes scarce, it will also become more expensive.
This will encourage extraction from sources that are uneconomical at lower prices.
That is, if politicians don’t interfere with these vital price signals by
instituting price controls such as “anti-gouging” laws.
I hope this is helpful
Regards
Jonathan Sarfati
Sam G. from Malaysia writes:
Answer me this…Well proven is the science of observing redshift to calculate
stellar and intergalactic distances. The speed of light is an undeniable and proven
constant. Spectral redshift is a fully proven and well tested method of measurement
of distances on extreme scale. Please answer me then how does creation fit with
the fact that, by example, the light from the Andromeda Galaxy take close to 2.5million
years to reach us.
It is not possible to refute the distances between stellar objects so how then is
our universe just 6000 years old as you seem to believe.
My second point is that if their are fossils of dinosaurs then why aren’t
there fossils of domestic animals such as cows,dogs and cats. Surely it stands to
reason that if there dinosaurs were fossilized then all other animals inhabiting
the planet during the last 6000 years should be represented in fossil records.
I saw one of your public presentation to children and was frankly shocked at the
way creationist beliefs were developed using crude and ill conceived arguments.
The very usage of such material is fundamentally wrong and i think an abuse of authority.
I draw one example where the presenter showed a picture of a photshopped gorrila
and then asked his young audience "does your grandmother look like this?" This is
just plain wrong wrong wrong…and there is no excuse for this abuse and completely
ill conceived method of teaching your views.
CMI’s Dr Jonathan Sarfati responds:
Sam
Under your philosophy, this is expressing nothing more than your own personal preference,
much like your preference for, say, chocolate over vanilla ice cream.
It appears that you didn’t check out our site first, as per our feedback rules. For example,
“How can we see
distant stars in a young universe?” a free chapter from our core resource,
the Creation Answers
Book.
Also, by your reasoning, coelacanths can’t possibly live in the sea at the
same time as whales, since coelacanth and whale fossils are not found together.
See this debate discussion Clash over
origins
If we are just re-arranged pond scum, as you believe, the results of survival of
the fittest, on what basis do you claim that anything is “plain
wrong wrong wrong ”? Under your philosophy, this is expressing
nothing more than your own personal preference, much like your preference for, say,
chocolate over vanilla ice cream. I wonder if you would prefer the sort of “abuse”
in the secular government schools that results in mass shootings (see
Inside the mind of a killer).
Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D.
A.C. from the United States writes:
I have a question about time, what is it? I don’t think time is a thing within
itself, but a process, the rate in which things happen? You could speed it up, or
slow it down, but you can’t stop it. You can stop everything that time controls,
but time is still working. How can God be outside of time? This is the only thing
standing in the way of God for me, please help.
CMI’s Dr David Catchpoole and Dr Jonathan Sarfati respond:
Dear A
You ask, “How can God be outside of time?”
Simple. God created time (“all things”—John 1:3), and God, being greater than anything He has made,
is not imprisoned by anything he has made. Time is certainly a created entity, as
it had a beginning (Genesis 1:1) cf. God, having no beginning or end, is eternal.
God created time (‘all things’—John 1:3), and God, being greater than anything He has made,
is not imprisoned by anything he has made.
Modern physics has caught up with the Bible and indeed teaches that time can be
stopped—for a photon or other particle travelling at the speed of light, or
the event horizon of a black hole. Time is now part of the space-time universe,
and doesn’t exist independently of matter and energy.
Also, Hebrews 1:2 and
11:3 state that God made the “worlds”, and the Greek is
the plural of aiōn, which also means “age” or “eternity”,
and is where we derive the word “eon”.
We hope this helps.
Regards
David Catchpoole and Jonathan Sarfati
Creation Ministries International
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