How Old Is The Earth?

[jamie26301]

Jamie, your position has obviously led you to have a low opinion of the authority of God's Word. I can see the evidence throughout your posts. It's sad, really. I'm all for opening up discussion for other options, but if a person calls themself a Christian, they jolly well better hold to their book of faith (the Bible) as the ultimate written record of God's Truth. Otherwise they can introduce any strange beliefs and pack them into the Bible, rather than let the Bible define everything they see around them. Holding Science above Scripture is an extremely dangerous practice. Scripture interprets scripture. Science (as is understood by most today) is about explaining everything in a purely natural manner, to discredit/disallow any form of divine creator and divine intervention. Therefore, to be consistent, a Christian can't allow evolutionary thinking or day-age beliefs or any of that to have a foothold in their faith.

Ok, I have a very high opinion of the Bible. I was just reading (and marking in it, and journaling about it) it yesterday. I do not have to have an hyper-conservative mindset to gain value and revelation from the Bible. If I had a low opinion of the Bible (and yes, even its authority) I wouldn't be a Christian.

Again, no one has told me what Scripture exactly is, when there are so many accounts and beliefs about Jesus' life. Saying that a select group of people voted on it, doesn't convince me. The four Gospels were chosen because of Irenaeus' document in which he (alone) went through all the available Gospels and choose those four particular ones - he thought four would be the best number because it would represent the four winds, or corners of the earth. Part of the reason they were chosen was because they were narrative and simple in form, while other Gospels are more complex and harder to understand and he wanted to choose Gospels that would be easily understood and accepted - not the same as a picking them because they are the absolute truth above all the "Gnostic rubbish." I don't know if other Gospels were even considered at that Council. But that particular work by him had a great influence on the decisions that day.

And like Cycel said in one of his posts, I believe that the ancients wrote God's revelation in such a way to reflect what they personally believed and how they perceived the world. I haven't seen anyone address that argument yet, unless I skimmed over it. I haven't seen anyone address as to how the Hebrews had insight into "scientific knowledge" far ahead of their time while all other nations were still stuck in stupid. They had slaves - these people who supposedly were far better than anyone around them? Paul seemed himself to endorse slavery. But I digress.

 

[oldhermit]

I believe that the ancients wrote God's revelation in such a way to reflect what they personally believed and how they perceived the world.

If they did this, it would not be the Word of God.

 

[jamie26301]

So I take it that in this instance you categorize between Christians who can't and Christians who do understand what you understand. The latter being those who accept the theory of evolution, etc. Personally I think it makes no sense for a Christian to take that position. Is a world that makes itself really the most wonderful thing that God could bestow on his creation? A system that depends on the survival of the fittest where millions of creatures brutally devour each other daily? No way! Even the supernatural mind would want to follow logical pathways.

It's all a matter of perspective. My husband accepts the Big Bang, and evolution, and he says it enhances his faith. The idea that your 70 year life is just a fraction of a fraction of a second on the time scale of the universe is humbling. The idea that we are made of the remnants of stars - stars that burst billions of years ago - is humbling. To think that the human race has come so far in learning and morality since its primitive days is humbling. (He is a believer, btw)

I know a lot of YECists wouldn't see it that way, but I tend to understand where he is coming from.

 

[jamie26301]

If they did this, it would not be the Word of God.

I understand, but how do you KNOW those particular texts ARE the Word of God? Above all the other Christian texts?

I notice you didn't take time to answer any of the points or questions that I made.

Everyone: I respect the YEC position. I used to spend hours reading articles on AiG's website. I'm not in ignorance of what the arguments are, as I used to argue them myself. I am not necessarily trying to debunk it, I just want answers to the fundamental questions, as in post 1161. How are you SO SURE in what texts you hold sacred?

 

[oldhermit]

I understand, but how do you KNOW those particular texts ARE the Word of God? Above all the other Christian texts?

I notice you didn't take time to answer any of the points or questions that I made.

Everyone: I respect the YEC position. I used to spend hours reading articles on AiG's website. I'm not in ignorance of what the arguments are, as I used to argue them myself. I am not necessarily trying to debunk it, I just want answers to the fundamental questions, as in post 1161. How are you SO SURE in what texts you hold sacred?

If you do not accept the Bible as the exclusive word of God, and as nothing more than the product of human intelligence, then you devalue the scriptures. You cannot have it both ways.

 

[Tintin]

It's all a matter of perspective. My husband accepts the Big Bang, and evolution, and he says it enhances his faith. The idea that your 70 year life is just a fraction of a fraction of a second on the time scale of the universe is humbling. The idea that we are made of the remnants of stars - stars that burst billions of years ago - is humbling. To think that the human race has come so far in learning and morality since its primitive days is humbling. (He is a believer, btw)

I know a lot of YECists wouldn't see it that way, but I tend to understand where he is coming from.

Humbling? Personally, I find such notions ridiculous. And no, you don't seem to have a high authority of the Bible at all. I'm not stupid. I know what, "I hold the Bible in very high authority BUT..." actually means. It's much more humbling to realise the first man was crafted from the dust by his very Creator.

 

[Tintin]

Again in the specific debate of Old Earth vs Young Earth, if we put aside theology (meaning theories be they Christian theroies or Atheist theories) for a moment and go with what we do know, we come up with a Young Earth only on the scale of thousands of years. Let's go back to the 3000 BC. Again this is not the first day of days, even according to the Bible. However it is the earliest date mankind can make an educated guess or Theory based off of hard evidence both historical written evidence (such as the Bible and other non-biblical histories) and archaeological evidence.

Using hard evidence, both archaeological and historical we come not only to a conclusion that Earth is only thousands of years old, but also that the Near East is the cradle of post-Flood civilization. Unlike Old Earthers who can only make models that conflict with eachother and theories of their Old Earth's past, we Young Earthers can give you models that have a basis in proof and do not contradict eachother and furthermore the evidence harmonizes together with the Bible's book of Genesis which is fairly enough the most scrutinized and doubted book of all the collection of books in the Bible. (don't worry Old Earthers, I once was an Old Earthers too and scrutinized Genesis just as much as anyone I know.)

Here's an observable demonstration that some person made a slide show of various historical maps starting at our baseline guess of 3000 BC following through to 2014 AD (note: keep in mind we're just starting simple so we start at 3000 BC, the Bible and history and archaeology imply a slightly older Earth than this, but this is merely the best educated starting point for which there is secular proof):

Now note there is still room for a little debate here since we can't give exact date for any of these empires, merely the best guesses are rounded to 3000 BC with a margin of error on the scale of a few centuries as opposed to Old Earth models where their "geologic ages" have margins of errors of millions to billions of years (yet for some reason Old Earthers don't find this to be completely absurd.)

Now anyone scholarly on history whether Christian, pagan, or atheist knows all ready that the Middle East region is indisputably the Cradle of Civilization. At the 3000 BC mark two empires exist the Sumerian Empire and the Egyptian Empire (though the Egyptian Empire at this point is not a true Empire being divided into the two kingdoms of Lower and Upper Egypt). With the Egypt uniting into one Empire and the Akkadian and Elamite Empires rising shortly thereafter in the fertile crescent and today's persia.

Now returning to the Bible we have to keep in mind that the Bible, post-Flood there is an age of early humanity that we will arbitrarily say lasted for a few centuries where the 3 tribes of Shem, Ham, and Japheth spread out over the globe founding cities and civilizations as we know it today. So keep in mind that when we start at 3000 BC the Post-Flood Earth is still a bit older than 3000 BC, merely the 3000 BC model is the most hard secular evidence for where written history as we know it begins. Starting at 3000 BC we see that few cities have been founded and empires have begun to emerge complimenting quite nicely the history recorded in post-Flood and post-Tower of Babel account of Genesis.


Exactly what time in Genesis all this is going down I cannot honestly say myself with any certain fact so we must turn to Theology and Theory. If we analyze the Bible as a historical document I personalyl would theorize that 3000 BC is either during the time of Abraham or is a few generations before the patriarch of Israel. My reasoning is due to the fact Abraham is said to have been born/lived in the city of Ur (considerred by scholars and historians to be among the oldest of all cities and one of the main cities of the Sumerian Empire.) This would naturally imply Ur was in existence in Abraham's time and sldo existed before him thus implying the existence of the Sumerian Empire being in existence during this time. Either way though, be this pre-Abraham or during his lifetime, the surrounding evidence of the Bible coupled with history and archaeology proves even Genesis, the most unbelievable of all biblical books is in fact a bit more literal and true than one might first imagine! Plus if we put aside Genesis for a moment, this slide show is a good demonstration of the geo-political environment after Genesis which is much more well confirmed in history and archaeology and therefore no one really has any good reason to doubt any of the books after Genesis which are much easier to confirm, such as book of Kings, Judges, Joshua, Samuel, etc.

Good stuff, although some of the dates are off. Using the chrono-geneaologies found in Genesis 5 and 11 and other dates/ages in early Genesis, one arrives at somewhere in the ballpark of 2100BC for the patriarch Abraham. Also, the Great Flood happened around 1656AM (1656 years after creation) and Babel a couple hundred years following the Flood. Babylon was more or less established at the time of Babel, then the Egypt about 50 years later and Greece about 100 years later. So, from the beginning of the Greek Empire back tracking to the dispersal at the Tower of Babel we have under 150 years! The Bible should always come first as our authority but if these secular records are trustworthy, the three oldest ancient kingdoms of the known world were all established within a very short time of each other.

Source: In the Days of Peleg - creation.com

 

[Cycel]

What I should have said earlier would be more like an estimation of less than one in a "million billion gazillions" that any other planet would have an ocean like earth's.

Based on what premise? Give me your argument.

Here is another way to look at it: There are eight planets in the solar system and one planet has oceans. That’s one in eight, not one in a "million billion gazillions".

Mars and Saturn are dark and cold.

First of all Mars and Saturn shouldn’t be lumped together. Mars is a terrestrial planet and Saturn is a gas giant. Secondly Mars is not dark, it has a 24 hour day/night cycle just like the Earth. Third, at noon during the summer Mars, at its equator, reaches a comfortable 70° F. Fourth, there is now ample evidence Mars once had extensive seas. It still has plenty of water ice at its north pole and possibly has vast quantities of subsurface water ice covering much of the planet.

Venus has high atmospheric pressures and high temperatures that would crush and cook life as we know it.

It seems, however, Venus was once like Earth. Planetologists believe Venus may once have had oceans. The big question is, could what happened to Venus (a runaway greenhouse effect) happen on Earth?

Jupiter is a gaseous planet but massive and its gravity would crush us if we got near to it. Wind speeds on Uranus can exceed 500 miles per hour (mph) while wind speeds on Neptune can reach 1300 mph.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are gas giants and don’t count in the search for water, but some of the moons around some of these giants seem to have plenty of water. Europa is believed to even have a large ocean beneath its ice cover. Ganymede appears to have significant quantities of frozen water on its surface. Other moons also have water.

Oh, and flying by Jupiter won’t crush you. You’d have to enter its atmosphere and float down some distance on a parachute for that to happen.

The point is water is ubiquitous in the solar system. Any other planetary system nearby by is also likely to possess equal quantities of water. Far from being rare water seems to be everywhere we look. The odds you give appear way out of line with the evidence; and besides, I know you just made the figure up.

 

[wordhasit]

Evolution does NOT mean that creation is getting "better" with time. That's a spin on the theory that creationists put on it to discount it. Evolution simply means that organisms adapt to their environment, and over time, it leads to great changes in the organism as it's environment changes - some die out, others adapt.

So the ones that adapt have a better chance to survive. Survival of the fittest. It's about staying alive. I had made the observation about 'devolution' because of Cycel's statement that millions of Christians believe in evolution. I just can't see any evidence for that in the scriptures. For one thing, every time that God made something he saw that it was 'good'. If you make something that's 'good' you want it to stay like that. Who wants to change something that's working? And you definitely don't want a scratch on your brand new car, in my case bicycle. So, the creation was brand new and shiny and God wanted to keep it up to scratch, for everything was vibrantly alive and nothing had died on him as yet. He put Adam in charge of the earth and in not so many words warned him, "keep away from that tree, or things will get scratched!" Things went very fast from there. It seemed Eve got in the driving seat and Adam just went along with her reckless behavior, flouting all the rules and wrecking everything that had been so beautifully put together. As a result it became no less than a total write-off and god declared it suitable for the scrap heap only. It went from absolutely perfect to something that was dead, decaying and fading away, not fit to survive.....not evolution. Sorry, not how the story went in every detail, but I wanted to take some literary liberties to illustrate that the word that would best describe Gods creation is not 'evolution'.

 

[Cycel]

It's all a matter of perspective. My husband accepts the Big Bang, and evolution, and he says it enhances his faith. The idea that your 70 year life is just a fraction of a fraction of a second on the time scale of the universe is humbling. The idea that we are made of the remnants of stars - stars that burst billions of years ago - is humbling. To think that the human race has come so far in learning and morality since its primitive days is humbling. (He is a believer, btw)

I know a lot of YECists wouldn't see it that way, but I tend to understand where he is coming from.

The thing about your husband's perspective is that he has the evidence all on his side.

 

[Cycel]

The four Gospels were chosen because of Irenaeus' document in which he (alone) went through all the available Gospels and choose those four particular ones - he thought four would be the best number because it would represent the four winds, or corners of the earth. Part of the reason they were chosen was because they were narrative and simple in form, while other Gospels are more complex and harder to understand and he wanted to choose Gospels that would be easily understood and accepted - not the same as a picking them because they are the absolute truth above all the "Gnostic rubbish." I don't know if other Gospels were even considered at that Council. But that particular work by him had a great influence on the decisions that day.

The Church fathers were also interested in promoting documents that would support its hierarchy. Some non-orthodox Christian writings taught that once an individual reached spiritual maturity they were beyond the authority of the clergy who were not spiritually mature. That meant such a person could even speak with more authority than a bishop. In a Church that was interested in maintaining tight control of it authority this meant stressing those texts that promoted a central authority, which the Church insisted it had inherited through Peter. There were other gospels that did not recognize Peter's authority; they were declared heretical and burned.

Jamie, you might enjoy AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and The Christian State, by Charles Freeman.

 

[Tintin]

Cycel, the evidence is the same for both sides of the argument. Vastly different worldviews are what separates the two. Therefore, we have vastly different presuppositions and conclusions.

 

[Bowman]

Good stuff, although some of the dates are off. Using the chrono-geneaologies found in Genesis 5 and 11 and other dates/ages in early Genesis, one arrives at somewhere in the ballpark of 2100BC for the patriarch Abraham. Also, the Great Flood happened around 1656AM (1656 years after creation) and Babel a couple hundred years following the Flood. Babylon was more or less established at the time of Babel, then the Egypt about 50 years later and Greece about 100 years later. So, from the beginning of the Greek Empire back tracking to the dispersal at the Tower of Babel we have under 150 years! The Bible should always come first as our authority but if these secular records are trustworthy, the three oldest ancient kingdoms of the known world were all established within a very short time of each other.

Source: In the Days of Peleg - creation.com

You will arrive at entirely different dates depending upon if you use the MT...or...the LXX...

That is why it is complete vanity to sum the generations to arrive at a date...

 

[Kerry]

I will say this again the Earth is 1megamillion con jillion multiplied zillion years old.

 

[Tintin]

You will arrive at entirely different dates depending upon if you use the MT...or...the LXX...

That is why it is complete vanity to sum the generations to arrive at a date...

Bowman, you and I both have very different views on this topic but I think we both believe that the Masoretic text is more reliable than the Septuagint text. I mean, Methuselah didn't tread water for a year during the Flood and then live for 16 more years!

 

[Cycel]

I had made the observation about 'devolution' because of Cycel's statement that millions of Christians believe in evolution.

How do you tie my remark to 'devolution'?

While an organism might be born that is less well adapted to survive – that is, it's de-evolved, as creationists like to say – it then becomes far more likely to become lunch. Such organisms do not contribute to the gene pool and so make devolution a moot point. They are not reproductively fit and they do not survive to reproduce.

I just can't see any evidence for that in the scriptures. For one thing, every time that God made something he saw that it was 'good'. If you make something that's 'good' you want it to stay like that.

Good is not best. Evolution makes things better.

Who wants to change something that's working?

The Model-T Ford worked. Why change it?

And you definitely don't want a scratch on your brand new car, in my case bicycle. So, the creation was brand new and shiny and God wanted to keep it up to scratch, for everything was vibrantly alive and nothing had died on him as yet.

A pack of wolves puts a dent on a shiny new fawn pretty quickly. The animal that is born with a trait that gives it a survival edge will pass on that trait to its offspring. That’s evolution.

 

[Kerry]

The Earth is gagillion years old.

 

[Cycel]

The Earth is gagillion years old.

No Kerry, only about 4.5 billion.

 

[Cycel]

I will say this again the Earth is 1megamillion con jillion multiplied zillion years old.

Have you been talking to one of my grade threes?

 

[Cycel]

Cycel, the evidence is the same for both sides of the argument. Vastly different worldviews are what separates the two. Therefore, we have vastly different presuppositions and conclusions.

But both can't be right.