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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.