The population discussion (Full Version)

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Consecrated2God -> The population discussion (8/16/2008 11:07:51 AM)

I thought this article was really interesting, and thought it would make a good discussion.


Where are all the people?


Six billion people live on planet Earth. That sounds like a lot of people. Well, I would not want to invite them all to a barbecue at my house! However, they could all fit into an area the size of England, with more than 20 square metres each. Many of us live in cities, so we have the impression that the world is bursting with people. However, much of the world is sparsely populated.

Nevertheless, many wonder at how the population could have grown to six billion from Noah’s family who survived the Flood that wiped out everyone else about 4,500 years ago. When you do the figures, it confirms the Biblical truth that everyone on Earth today is a descendant of Noah’s sons and daughters-in-law. Not only that, but if people have been here for much longer, and there was no global Flood of Noah’s day, there should be a lot more people than there are—or there should be a lot more human remains!

REST OF ARTICLE



drj11 -> RE: The population discussion (8/16/2008 11:25:59 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

I thought this article was really interesting, and thought it would make a good discussion.


Where are all the people?


Six billion people live on planet Earth. That sounds like a lot of people. Well, I would not want to invite them all to a barbecue at my house! However, they could all fit into an area the size of England, with more than 20 square metres each. Many of us live in cities, so we have the impression that the world is bursting with people. However, much of the world is sparsely populated.

Nevertheless, many wonder at how the population could have grown to six billion from Noah’s family who survived the Flood that wiped out everyone else about 4,500 years ago. When you do the figures, it confirms the Biblical truth that everyone on Earth today is a descendant of Noah’s sons and daughters-in-law. Not only that, but if people have been here for much longer, and there was no global Flood of Noah’s day, there should be a lot more people than there are—or there should be a lot more human remains!

REST OF ARTICLE


Actually it seems the Bible itself refutes this idea:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB620.html

"The Pyramids of Giza were constructed before 2490 B.C.E., even before the proposed Flood date. Even if we assume they were built 100 years after the flood, then the world population for their construction was 13 people. In 1446 B.C.E., when Moses was said to be leading 600,000 men (plus women and children) on the Exodus, this model of population growth gives 726 people in the world. In 481 B.C.E., Xerxes gathered an army of 2,641,000 (according to Herodotus) when the world population, according to the model, was 89,425. Even allowing for exaggerated numbers, the population model makes no sense. "



scutus -> RE: The population discussion (8/16/2008 11:29:45 AM)

quote:

In 481 B.C.E., Xerxes gathered an army of 2,641,000 (according to Herodotus) when the world population, according to the model, was 89,425.
Herodotus was of course exaggerating, no ancient army could possibly sustain such numbers for any length of time. Modern historians put it at between 100,000 and 300,000, still in opposition to the creationist model.



Consecrated2God -> RE: The population discussion (8/16/2008 11:36:47 AM)

Were there enough people to build the pyramids?

When people think of Egyptian pyramids, they usually think of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was built by King Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty. However, the first stone pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, was probably built during the Third Dynasty between 2100 and 2000 BC, according to the revised Egyptian chronology proposed by archaeologist David Down

<snip>

If we assume that Mizraim left Babel with a family of eight children (four boys and four girls), and if each couple averaged eight children every thirty years (which is probably quite conservative), in 150 years he could easily have had nearly 30,000 descendants. In 250 years, the population could explode to well over one million.


Continued



drj11 -> RE: The population discussion (8/16/2008 4:45:16 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

Were there enough people to build the pyramids?

When people think of Egyptian pyramids, they usually think of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was built by King Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty. However, the first stone pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, was probably built during the Third Dynasty between 2100 and 2000 BC, according to the revised Egyptian chronology proposed by archaeologist David Down

<snip>

If we assume that Mizraim left Babel with a family of eight children (four boys and four girls), and if each couple averaged eight children every thirty years (which is probably quite conservative), in 150 years he could easily have had nearly 30,000 descendants. In 250 years, the population could explode to well over one million.

Continued


They are getting their math wrong. They can only assume two people from Noah on, and thats it.

Just more massaging of the numbers to make an inexplicable and unworkable model appear to have some basis in reality.

Here is some real information, instead of made up 'just-so' stories from AiG: http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_pop/human_pop.html

First off, assuming the growth rate they do is absurd. Never mind accounting for famines, plagues, wars, etc etc... they dont even bother at AiG and just assume a static ridiculously optimistic growth rate that doesnt account for any kind of death. Remember the black death? Sent the population growth into the negative. Not to mention, its pretty hard to see how given the technology of the time, population growth of the magnitude that AIG is suggesting could be supported due to agriculture and other limitations. Couple these absurdities with the flood filled with shifting tectonic plates, showers of cataclysmic meteorites, and all these explanations that must be devised and inserted into the biblical text, can you begin to see how out there the YEC position is?

Not to mention, we can look at our genetics and determine when and how long ago population bottle necks occur. Glaudys made a very enlightening post on this a while back, maybe she can dig it up, or I will see if I can as well.



Consecrated2God -> RE: The population discussion (8/16/2008 9:39:02 PM)

quote:

They are getting their math wrong. They can only assume two people from Noah on, and thats it.


Noah took his three sons and their wives on board the ark too, don't forget that. Here are the generations born after the flood. Keep in mind that only sons are listed, and not daughters.

Gen 10:1-32 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations. The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and Caphtorim. Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber.
To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,
Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

That is a lot of people! Fast growing families starting cities and nations. Egypt would have been the uncle of Nimrod, who was the king of Babel. Noah was Egypt's grandfather.



Consecrated2God -> RE: The population discussion (8/16/2008 9:41:43 PM)

Oh, and I think if they had enough people to build Babel, they had enough people to then go on and build the pyramids.[:)]



drj11 -> RE: The population discussion (8/17/2008 12:45:21 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

quote:

They are getting their math wrong. They can only assume two people from Noah on, and thats it.


Noah took his three sons and their wives on board the ark too, don't forget that. Here are the generations born after the flood. Keep in mind that only sons are listed, and not daughters.

Gen 10:1-32 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations. The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD." The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom the Philistines came), and Caphtorim. Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. To Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the elder brother of Japheth, children were born. The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. The sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber.
To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan. Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,
Obal, Abimael, Sheba, Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the hill country of the east. These are the sons of Shem, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations. These are the clans of the sons of Noah, according to their genealogies, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood.

That is a lot of people! Fast growing families starting cities and nations. Egypt would have been the uncle of Nimrod, who was the king of Babel. Noah was Egypt's grandfather.


Well, again, assuming a growth in ancient times that is near or equivalent to the growth rate in modern times is simply insane. There is no justification for it what-so-ever. Check the link in my previous post for more information on population growth throughout history. AiG's explanations do not add up.

Also, Gluadys provides a detailed explanation of why genetics conclusively disproves any possibility of a mass extinction/population bottleneck in the human race that would coincide with the biblical story of the flood and Noah's ark. See post #45, and the ensuing discussion on this page: http://forums.crosswalk.com/m_3635376/mpage_2/key_population/tm.htm#



ianz -> RE: The population discussion (8/17/2008 5:19:02 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

Were there enough people to build the pyramids?

When people think of Egyptian pyramids, they usually think of the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was built by King Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty. However, the first stone pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, was probably built during the Third Dynasty between 2100 and 2000 BC, according to the revised Egyptian chronology proposed by archaeologist David Down

<snip>

If we assume that Mizraim left Babel with a family of eight children (four boys and four girls), and if each couple averaged eight children every thirty years (which is probably quite conservative), in 150 years he could easily have had nearly 30,000 descendants. In 250 years, the population could explode to well over one million.


Continued

It's kind of strange to have you arguing for a high population growth rate to support this thread, while arguing a low rate of population growth in this thread.



Consecrated2God -> RE: The population discussion (8/17/2008 8:00:33 AM)

quote:

AiG's explanations do not add up.


AiG's? I just quoted the Bible there, not AiG. The Bible says specifically that Egypt was the grandson of Noah. So obviously the Pyramids were built after the flood, and with the genealogy listed in Genesis, there should be no issue with that.

quote:

It's kind of strange to have you arguing for a high population growth rate to support this thread, while arguing a low rate of population growth in this thread.


The two threads do need to be combined, since they are both about population, so I'll address both sides of it.

The first idea is that the earth could never sustain so many people if we were in a perfect world and no one died. In the very beginning, the Bible describes a world where people lived a long time and waited until they were in their hundreds to have children. The population did grow quickly (they were fruitful and multiplied) but because of the way they were created, to live forever, they would not have had the need to produce children as close together as they did later on in history, when life spans were significantly shorter. After the flood, the life span began to drop drastically. Instead of seeing people fathering a child when they are 100 and living until they are 900, you see within a few generations people fathering a child when they are thirty and dying with they are 120. People started having children earlier and closer together. They only had a few years to have kids, and they had a lot of them. I mean look at the list of the sons of Joktan--he had 13 sons! Who knows how many daughters he had?



drj11 -> RE: The population discussion (8/17/2008 7:54:02 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

quote:

AiG's explanations do not add up.


AiG's? I just quoted the Bible there, not AiG. The Bible says specifically that Egypt was the grandson of Noah. So obviously the Pyramids were built after the flood, and with the genealogy listed in Genesis, there should be no issue with that.


Well no, according to most it is strongly evidenced that the pyramids were built before most creationists place the flood. Sites like AiG simply ignore this and decide to just throw around different dates so that the flood story fits. Perhaps one of the most striking and well articulated rebuttals to the population theories of AiG was in the post made by gluadys, that I linked too. To sum it up, it states that due to the variety in the genetic code throughout the human population, it is impossible for a global flood or any other catastrophe to have killed off all of humanity, save a single family, at the time creationists and AiG place the flood of Noah. The mass extinction did not occur, unless of course you begin to insert more miracles into the mix in addition to all the other ones that must have occurred and have been discussed over several threads.

As Ianz pointed out in another thread, there simply is no scientific way to get to young earth creationism... AiG's silly population calculations can not get you there.

If you take a faith based position on YEC, that incurs many other theological problems... God becomes a deceptive creator. But that is a topic for another thread.

I was trying to point out the dishonesty that AiG propagates, because this thread started because of AiG articles, and you have used another in support of the post I was replying too originally. There is hardly a single honest word on the entire AiG site.



Consecrated2God -> RE: The population discussion (8/18/2008 9:57:59 AM)

God does not decieve. His word is true and will stand forever. It is those who say there is no God who are the foolish ones, and those who do not build their lives on Christ.

The Bible has detailed genealogical records. I will take the word of God over the word of godless "experts" anyday.



drj11 -> RE: The population discussion (8/18/2008 11:45:47 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

God does not decieve. His word is true and will stand forever. It is those who say there is no God who are the foolish ones, and those who do not build their lives on Christ.


Edit: This is not a conversation about God vs no God, this is a conversation about populations and YEC. It seems so many YE Creationists have confused belief in YEC with belief in God, such that any stance that is in opposition to YEC is also a denial of God. If you choose not to believe that the population theories of AiG are indeed baseless, at least take one thing from this conversation... and that is that one can both believe in God and believe that YEC is false. Reason, rationality and science do not necessarily stand opposed to God... but they all do stand opposed to YEC. Many stand opposed to YEC who also believe in Christ.

quote:


The Bible has detailed genealogical records. I will take the word of God over the word of godless "experts" anyday.


Many of those experts are most definitely not "Godless".



HHV5 -> RE: The population discussion (8/18/2008 2:08:38 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: drj11

quote:

ORIGINAL: Consecrated2God

God does not decieve. His word is true and will stand forever. It is those who say there is no God who are the foolish ones, and those who do not build their lives on Christ.

The Bible has detailed genealogical records. I will take the word of God over the word of godless "experts" anyday.



Many of those experts are most definitely not "Godless".


No, but they are tainted by world views. /sarc



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