Welcome to Gaia! ::

How does the timeline not makes sense? Meh. Anyway..ok. Here goes... science has no exact true knowledge of the date of things. The best we can do so far, with the technology that exists to date, is to observe the current rate of decay and growth of current living things, then expand those numbers exponentially, based on other findings. Do you know about radiocarbon dating? It uses the known and repeatedly observed amount of time that it takes for a specific isotope of carbon to decay out of a once-living organism. The amount of time it takes for half of that material to decay is called a half-life. By calculating the amount of carbon 12 (the isotope I mentioned) left in fossils, you can use simple math to determine how many times it would have decayed by half, and thus the number of years ago the organism died. Now, sadly, radiocarbon dating will only work back so far, but there are other chemicals that can be dated back even further. Additionally, scientists quite often use tree rings to aide in the process. If a fossilized tree is found at a certain level of sedimentation that can be dated, then the rings are counted, which tells how many years it lived. From that, a the specific levels of chemicals associated with that year, along with distincitve damage indicators that are found on other trees of the same, and nearby sediment layers, can be compared, and used to establish dating. When these trees with specific indicators are found in different levels, with the rings that have the markers in different points in the tree's growth, it shows where the tree belongs in history. Eventually, it can be used to track time back far enough to date really really old things. But, of course, most of all of the dates science has come up with for things millions of years ago are mostly well-educated hypotheses, based on these rates of decay. We don't know for sure, and with the level technology is currently at, we can't. But, it's the same with religion. You can't know, 100% absolutely whether or not there is a heaven or hell, or anything else, until you die. You can believe with all of your heart, and hope you're right, but honestly, you don't KNOW.

I know you and Curse have already had this conversation but I would like to say what I tell you is not a conversion tactic in any means, rather it is fixing misconceptions you seem to have about Christianity.

First off you shouldn't be so offensive towards one praying for you, you should be happy that one cares for you in such a way = ) its a form of compliment not that of putting someone down. They are willing to take time out of their day, in hopes to make yours better if you will.

Exactly what one means when we say life is pointless. Everything you do will be for not, every pain will not increase one measure of your existence. Why go through the pain to begin with pray tell? Will there be any gain from it? Anything that does not last, has no purpose, no meaning.

Satan's whole goal is to destroy us, to send us to the same place he must be tortured, he hates us, despises us. And God, His whole being is nothing but forgiveness, that we do not deserve. I no I do not...He forgives of everything if on His son you believe. "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed" Isaiah 53:5
"But God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:17 and lastly "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1John 4:10 The whole being of God is not that of unforgiveness, it is truly of forgiveness. Hosea tells us, " in the place where it was said unto t hem, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God." Hosea 1:10 And I can pull out so many more talking about the forgiveness of God, his whole being spells out love and forgiveness. Just please don't forget that this is not an attempt to convert you, rather it is one to try and cover up certain misconceptions. P.S. you seem like a very good person = ).

I'm sure you mean the world's oldest living trees. And as far as the great flood, there is evidence that there was actually a large flood that occured in the Mediterranian thounsands of years ago, and was recorded in many cultures at the same time. Doesn't necessarily mean there's any religious tie at all.

I really don't know what you're trying to say with the stuff about the comets and blue stars. But, I'll try to give a response. Comets are formed from super-compacted ice, and since there is no air in space, there is no heat to melt the ice. Also, they are so HUGE that it takes thousands of years for them to disentegrate. And since we have only recorded the occurance of them and been able to see what they really are for a relatively short amount of time, we don't know how many have formed and disentegrated over time.

Stars cannot form? Then where did they come from? Stars are gas compacted by the pull of gravity. They burn until they run out of energy, then die out. I don't know what point you were making with what you said, because it just trailed off.

Also, I have never heard of this "immutability species" you mentioned. And of course great scientists are wrong. That is the wonderful thing about science... even if you're wrong, you make wonderful discoveries that can be further researched and defined by subsequent scientists.

Wow, you know what??? I'm NOT an equal when it comes to talking about the bible. I never read further than a few pages in. Why? It was contradictory and made no sense. All I know is, from what I have heard that is written in the bible, I want nothing to do with it.

I want to know where you got the supposed fact that the oldest tree specimen is only 3000 years old. I have taken several anthropology classes, and it was my major for a while in college. All the scientific data shows that Native Americans came over from Asia roughly 12000 years ago, and there is plantlife in the archaeological record from that time.

Now, on to those prophecies. There are no dates within the actual prophecies. So yes, they came true. It would be like me saying, "At some point in the future, California is going to have a major earthquake, split along the San Andreas fault, and fall into the ocean." And what do you know, thousands of years later, it actually happens. Does that mean God spoke through me, or to me, or I was inspired? No. It just means I was paying attention to what has been happening in the world, and made a prediction. So, the people who wrote these noticed that great cities always fall at some point, and predicted that these would too.

Simple. I. DON'T. BELIEVE. IN. GOD.

I will give you one contradiction as an example. It says that God created man and woman together, and then a few passages later, it says that Adam was created first, then needed a mate, so Eve was created from his rib. How could we have been created, then created again? Did God screw up and have to start over? Is it a remnant of the original story of Lillith (still inlcuded in the Hebrew bible)?

To answer your question, I do not believe that Evolution can succeed and fail, because it has no end goal. Evolution is just change over time.

Through a long series of random chances and adaptations due to environmental pressures, chemicals formed into life, which diverged into many different forms. As far as humans specifically, we evolved from a creature that was also a ancestor of modern apes. It bothers me when people say we came from apes. We actually didn't.