So...how old is the Earth?

[Arel]

D-n't be put -ff by the actions -f a few Cup- -f Ruin. I'm sure these Christians mean well.

I'm sure that was meant in jest (at least, I hope it was...), but it is still mocking me. Can we refrain from doing so, please?

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

I called you rude because you were being rude. I called you arrogant because you were being arrogant. And if you'd care to point out where I "bore false testimony" (i.e. lied) against you, by all means do so

I mean do you have anything to add to the thread 'So...how old is the earth'?

 

[MahogonySnail]

I'm sure that was meant in jest (at least, I hope it was...), but it is still mocking me. Can we refrain from doing so, please?

Hey we're real Jews too brother.

 

[Arel]

I mean do you have anything to add to the thread 'So...how old is the earth'?

I think I just added a whole discussion

Off-topic, sure. But those are never bad

 

[Arel]

Hey we're real Jews too brother.

I wasn't aware that a branch being attached to a tree made it the tree

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

Hey we're real Jews too brother.

Speak for yourself 'Snail.

 

[cowgrl_kimmi]

Seems like there are a few different beliefs as to the age of the Earth,
What are your beliefs and why?

Oh wow... SO many different beliefs, and so many theories... which to believe?

There are those who claim the Earth is a few thousand years old (around 6000, in fact). I highly doubt this, as I am a history-fanatic, and right into archaeology, etc... there is way too much proof that the Earth is FAR older.

Another claim of Christians/believers, is that the earth is older than 6000 years. In fact, take those 6000 years... add 6000 for the 6 days that it took to create the Earth. Some also add another 1000 for the seventh day (that He rested). Why THOUSAND, instead of just ONE, as the Bible says? ... Well, ONE day for the Lord is a THOUSAND human years.

Plus others, that I don't really have the time to type...


My claim is that this argument is going to remain "forever", unanswered...
I think, perhaps, we are not MEANT to know.
Yes, it's SO frustrating not having all the answers you want... but what is life without some mysteries?

 

[cowgrl_kimmi]

Humans (apparently) used to live for far more years than we do now. Perhaps days were incredibly longer, also?
Perhaps THOSE days, being the first days, were longer than what we have now...

Stephanie the question really is how old the Earth is and not how long did it take God to create it, but since you mentioned that human days are not God days, then explain the bold type phrases below...

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Gen 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Gen 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
Gen 2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

Oh wow... SO many different beliefs, and so many theories... which to believe?

There are those who claim the Earth is a few thousand years old (around 6000, in fact). I highly doubt this, as I am a history-fanatic, and right into archaeology, etc... there is way too much proof that the Earth is FAR older.

Another claim of Christians/believers, is that the earth is older than 6000 years. In fact, take those 6000 years... add 6000 for the 6 days that it took to create the Earth. Some also add another 1000 for the seventh day (that He rested). Why THOUSAND, instead of just ONE, as the Bible says? ... Well, ONE day for the Lord is a THOUSAND human years.

Plus others, that I don't really have the time to type...


My claim is that this argument is going to remain "forever", unanswered...
I think, perhaps, we are not MEANT to know.
Yes, it's SO frustrating not having all the answers you want... but what is life without some mysteries?

God created man and woman fully formed mature adults, could He have not done the same with the earth, he could have created a fully formed mature earth. Something to keep in mind.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

Humans (apparently) used to live for far more years than we do now. Perhaps days were incredibly longer, also?
Perhaps THOSE days, being the first days, were longer than what we have now...

Yes this is true, day and night were not divided by the sun until the fourth day, so it could be that the first three days were longer than 24 hours.

 

[cowgrl_kimmi]

God created man and woman fully formed mature adults, could He have not done the same with the earth, he could have created a fully formed mature earth. Something to keep in mind.

True.
And it is more likely that He did. (although, what is 'likely', when it comes to God?)
But that doesn't help much either.
Look at all the skeletons, fossils, etc that have been/are being dug up... that are millions of years old...




Someone suggested to me once - and I'm really sure how to take this - that God may have created the Earth in 7 days... but not 7 continual days. Like, create on day one and day two... take a 'day' or so break (or perhaps not break... working on something else, perhaps? No idea. Lol)... day three... etc.
It fails to convince me, somehow. Lol.

 

[Cup-of-Ruin]

True.
And it is more likely that He did. (although, what is 'likely', when it comes to God?)
But that doesn't help much either.
Look at all the skeletons, fossils, etc that have been/are being dug up... that are millions of years old...

I think you will find that carbon dating is flawed, for example, do you see how many wilderbeast there are in a migrating herd in Africa - millions, what happens to their bones? If bones lasted millions of years there would be literally entire mountains of them still intact, bones don't last very long, they are reduced to dust sometimes in just a few months. "fossilized" you might say, that is debatable, the method used to determine what is 'fossilized' is equally flawed, it is next to impossible to date something if you dont have a human written record.

 

[cowgrl_kimmi]

I think you will find that carbon dating is flawed, for example, do you see how many wilderbeast there are in a migrating herd in Africa - millions, what happens to their bones? If bones lasted millions of years there would be literally entire mountains of them still intact, bones don't last very long, they are reduced to dust sometimes in just a few months. "fossilized" you might say, that is debatable, the method used to determine what is 'fossilized' is equally flawed, it is next to impossible to date something if you dont have a human written record.

I've used that argument before, too. Although, I could never put it as well as you just did! Lol.
But what I've said is that, perhaps, humans are reading things wrong - coming to the wrong conclusions.

 

[Semiazas]

heh, always gives me a giggle to hear ppl who arent scientists trying to explain how science has got it all wrong.

 

[Chico_Zimbabwe]

Every method of dating has assumptions based on an a priori belief that the age of the earth is really really old. If those assumptions are wrong, the dates are wrong. With radiocarbon dating, they assume the earth's production and decay of carbon are in balance which is not really true. Many things dated to be millions of years old can also be explained by a single catastrophic event such as Noah's flood. We've even seen severe and wide-spread tsunamis, hurricanes (Katrina), volcanos, severe electrical storms, floods, droughts, in our life time. What's the chances of everything being nicely in balance for millions, or billions of years?

Methods of dating: In practice, if a radiocarbon date fits the preconceived theory, they include it, if it doesn't, they reject it. There is considerable amount of bias and weight put on those a priori assumptions (eg that the earth really is old). Those assumptions come from evolutionary theory which requires very long ages in order to work in the first place.

In the case of aboriginal rock paintings in Australia, they are dated to be tens of thousands of years old. Based on paintings of animals which are extinct - again, itself based on an assumption that they became extict 10's of thousands of years ago, when that is not really known.

Based on radiocarbon dating - they can't date the pigment itself (need enough organic material in it) but only the rock surrounding it I think. Even so this is the most prone to error method.

These paintings are merely clay and water. They can fade fairly easily yet are supposed to have lasted tens of thousands of years. They have probably been touched up (painted over) from time to time , and even due to water damage they've had to put coatings on them to stop them fading away - now what's the chances that these paintings lasted 30,000 years if they're worried about them fading away in a generation?

In the same areas where they have these paintings supposedly dated thousands of years old, there are aborigional paintings of Europeans with guns and ships which look pretty much the same as these thousand year old paintings.

Scenes of organised warfare in thousand of year old aboriginal paintings dated at 30,000 years contradict the evolutionary view that warfare only began after agriculture developed and resulted in conflict over territorial control of land.

They deliberately ignore other evidence we have such as aboriginal stories or legends that parallel Noah's flood and the tower of babel.

All in all, the evidence doesn't stack up to tens of thousand year histories, at least not conclusively.

The current methods available and the issues associated with using them are explained here:
http://www.une.edu.au/archaeology/WorldRockArt/dating.php

The one about getting enough material veruss ruining the ancient artwork is an interesting one. Those dates amounting to 30,000 years can easily drop back to 10-12000 years or even 6000 years.

Thank you for your reply, Mahogony. The article you present in this website seems to say that scientists are fairly confident of the accuracy of radiometric dating. It makes sense that one should use the correct test when doing any kind of analysis. If you use isotopes that are only found in rocks, how could they be accurate in analyzing material that is found primarly in living organisms (i.e. organic or carbon-based)?

Also, you say that scientists are "biased". It's clear that that's your opinion but do you have any UN-biased evidence that shows this?

 

[Chico_Zimbabwe]

heh, always gives me a giggle to hear ppl who arent scientists trying to explain how science has got it all wrong.

Until you have a kid enrolled in school and moron like Cup_of_Ruin is teaching the science class.

 

[MahogonySnail]

Also, you say that scientists are "biased". It's clear that that's your opinion but do you have any UN-biased evidence that shows this?

No sorry. There's really no such thing as un-biased evidence. There's a lot of articles here about the problems with dating techniques:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers/topic/radiometric-dating

 

[Harley_Angel]

I think earth is eleventy billion years old give or take twenty billion years. My evidence is that, um...stuff.

 

[cowgrl_kimmi]

heh, always gives me a giggle to hear ppl who arent scientists trying to explain how science has got it all wrong.

=P Hehe. =]

 

[cowgrl_kimmi]

Anyhow, my point was that I don't think it matters how much we debate it... we are NEVER going to know the age of the Earth. ... and I don't think that we are MEANT to know.
Besides that, this debating isn't going to get you any closer to the correct answer, lol.