Questions about creation, how long the Earth has been around, and the universe

[AV1611VET]

Just because science tells you that the earth is billions of years old, don’t accept it so quickly. True science involves the scientific method as its primary study tool. If scientists cannot observe, repeat, observe, repeat, etc. the same creation "experiment" then they have no reason to make a conclusion. This is where true science crosses over into philosophy, speculation, and religion. If you are a believer of the Bible, then you should take it literally, unless it is otherwise suggested to be a parable or symbolism. "And there was evening, and there was morning, one day." It is obvious that the author didn't intend to confuse the reader, but instead clearly stated each of the days consist of an evening and a morning, just as they do now. If you accept it literally, one day isn't an arbitrary value of time.

Evolution -- I know I'm going to get flamed for this one but here it goes.... Death did not enter into the world until the fall of mankind. How then can evolution and the Bible agree with each other? They are mutually exclusive, if one is right, the other must be wrong. Defenders of evolution will bring up the geologic column where you have the ascending structure of organisms throughout history with humans at the top of the list. This however has never been found anywhere in nature in the fossil records, and is only a pictorial representation of what man already believed, not what was found by scientific research. The geologic column falls apart when confronted with reason and logic. It estimates some 90,000 feet of thickness for the entire sedimentary rock column. The greatest depth man has ever drilled is only 22,000 feet, some 25% of the estimated rock layer.
Another aspect to think about... The second law of thermodynamics refutes the idea of evolution. During each energy exchange there is always a portion of the total energy that is lost to a non-reusable form of energy. This means that there is a pattern of DECAY as time passes. Evolution states that things became more complex and organized as time passed, when actually, things should have broken down and become less organized throughout the “billions of years” that claimed to have passed.

Spike2k, keep up the faith, don’t allow science to steer you away from the One who called you. Grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and press on towards the high mark.

You may be 'pure' and 'premium', but you're anything but 'pulp' --

 

[Oncedeceived]

All right, i don't know where to start. First, this is my first post/thread on this forum, don't flame .

I went to christian/catholic schools until 8th grade (that was my last year there)
It was almost impossible to question the teachers there. They would not listen, and if you argued, you would have to go to the office.
My argument starts here. Creation took place in 6 days, with 1 day to rest. Science tells us that Earth has been around for a few billion years. This right here starts the arguments.
I BELIEVE that creation may have taken "6 days" but not in the sense that it took 6 days. I believe that the first few days were 800 million years old. Once the fish and reptiles started showing up, i believe the days were down to 100 million years, and then once the humans started appearing, i believe they were only a few million years old. My theory works, because according to science, the world is old, and evolution took place. Now before you jump on my case about evolution, who is to say it didn't happen. All our scientific theories point to evolution. If my theory was right, meaning that the days weren't days, then once again, I'm right. If God started evolution, then the bible is right and science is right once again. Just because God may not have made Mankind in ONE day, doesn't mean he didn't make us. He could have put all the elements in the right place at the right time and started the process. Therefore we = made in God's image. Adam and Eve could possibly just be a symbol of humanity. They may have been the original 2, but all of their kin had to populate the planet, which would not have been explained in the bible it would have taken millions of pages. This would take much time to just happen in 1 or 2 days.

so i guess what i'm asking is, is how is the Bible right? What evidence that points towards the BIBLE being right and not science?

That's all i have for now on this subject, but i am full of arguments when it comes to the bible. I am a christian and i do attend church every week, but i am trying to fulfill my faith by figuring all this out.


*lost christian*

Take a look at this:
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This is like a heading or title rather than what many see as the first act in Creation. It is stating that there was a beginning to our universe and that God created both the heavens and the earth. This is supported later in Genesis. The Big Bang theory supports that the universe did have a beginning.

Now the earth was unformed and void,

This is stating that the earth was not formed yet. Which supports my viewpoint that the first verse is not the first act of Creation.


and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

Science has shown that the early universe was dark (see below)
Up until recently, there was a conflict with Science due to the fact that it was considered impossible for a liquid form to be present during the formation of the universe. This also comes in below.



And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

2 3 And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ht_010808.html

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Astronomers announced Tuesday they have seen through the fog of the early universe to spy some of the first light emitted during a "cosmic renaissance" that occurred when the first galaxies were born.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]The announcement came just days after a different research group said they had spotted the first evidence of the cosmic dark ages, the period long thought to have preceded this newly spotted cosmic brightening.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Together, the studies provide glimpses into the earliest mechanisms of the universe, after the Big Bang. Astronomers familiar with the studies called them important for helping create a timeline of the universe's evolution.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]Evidence for the two epochs have long been sought by astronomers and cosmologists, who believe the universe began in a Big Bang some 12 to 15 billion years ago, after which the universe expanded rapidly but remained dark for millions and millions of years. Lumps and bumps were thought to form in an otherwise smooth distribution of matter during these dark ages, and the first galaxies were born after gravity caused these clumps of matter to grow larger. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]The galaxies marked the end of the dark ages and the beginning of the cosmic renaissance.[/FONT]


6 And God said: 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.' 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. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. {P}


In the beginning was ... a perfect liquid? - Technology & science - Science - msnbc.com

Liquid, not a gas
The quark-gluon plasma was made in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider — a powerful atom smasher at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. Unexpectedly, the quark-gluon plasma behaved like a perfect liquid of quarks, instead of a gas, the physicists said.

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. 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.
This again was thought conflicting with Scientific findings, it was thought that the early earth was too hot for a liquid state but that has been shown not to be the case. Early earth did have water on its surface.
More to follow:

 

[Oncedeceived]

11 And God said: 'Let the earth put forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth.' And it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. {P}

There are two points to consider in interpreting this verse. The first is that there is no evidence to support this verse. The second has two possible meanings which could be valid. The first of the two is that there is no evidence of this due to plate tectonics, it is a well known fact that the earliest surface of the earth is probably lost for all time due to movement. The second is that all plants and trees have their beginings from green algae which is the first life form on earth.

I concede that "evidence" to support my viewpoint on this is interpretive at best and so I will consider this verse somewhat of a gap in the conclusions I hold.

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; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.' And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 19{P} 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. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

There are several conflicts in this verse that skeptics have in their understanding of this verse. The first is firmament being meant as a hard dome surface but we see in the following verses that birds fly in the firmament which would be impossible to do in a hard domed surface. The second is that the sun was formed first with the moon and earth thereafter.

My viewpoint is that the age of the earth is not conclusive due to plate tectonics, the oldest known rocks are probably lost to us and those that are in evidence show the earth much older than scientists first believed. 03 February, 1998. Astronomers have been able to date the Sun by applying the theory of stellar structure and evolution to data that describe the interior of the Sun found through the study of solar oscillations. The Sun is dated at 4.5 billion years old, satisfyingly close to the 4.56 billion year age of the Solar System as found from the study of meteorites.
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/FAQ/Qage.html
Dating the Sun is an indirect process. There are several independent ways of estimating the age and they all give nearly the same answer: about 5 billion years.
The age of the Sun can be estimated from the ages obtained from radioactive dating of the oldest meteorites. This may seem odd at first, but in fact it is extremely likely that the solar system (i.e. th Sun, planets, asteroids etc.) formed as one unit. Therefore the age of the Sun should be close to the age of the meteorites, which can be found using the method of radioactive dating.
G.J. Wasserburg obtained a meteoritic age of (4.57 +/- 0.01) x 10^9 years and D.B. Guenther (1989, Astrophysical Journal 339, 1156) estimated that hydrogen burning started shortly thereafer (40 million (0.04 +/- .01) x 10^9 years later).
Additional evidence comes from the Earth. The oldest Earth rocks are also about 4.6 billion years old. The oldest fossils, found in Australia, are about 3.5 bilion years old. The presence of fossils in rocks indicates that the Earth was a suitable place for life when the fossils formed. This implies that the Sun was luminous at that time. [Of course we can't say exactly how long before the fossil formed the Sun was like it is today, but it does give us a lower bound.]
What is meant by "luminous?" We mean that the Sun was at or near the stable part of its lifetime called the "main sequence" more than 3.6 billion years ago. Viewing the Sun as a star on the main sequence, is very useful and important for astronomers because they have a model called "The Standard Solar Model" that views the Sun at stages in its life while it is burning hydrogen and converting that to helium. The model can be run forward and backward in time, and the astronomers can check the observable quantities in the model like luminosity, solar radius, composition, solar p-mode frequencies, and so on with our real Sun. They can stop the model at any time during its main sequence. If what we see from our Sun matches the quantities in the model for a specific age, then we have one more piece of information of what we think that the age of the Sun is.
One complication of checking the Solar Model with our real Sun is the quantity of helium: the "helium abundance." That is rather difficult to obtain. According to the Dalsgaard article (see below), the solar spectrum is too complicated to accurately measure the helium abundance, so that one parameter has to be estimated (one infers the helium abundance by matching the observed solar radius and luminosity in the solar models). It turns out this affects the estimated age very little.

More to follow: __________________

 

[Oncedeceived]

20 And God said: 'Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let fowl fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.'
This is stating what God wants done and the next verse says that is what he did.
21 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
The Cambrian era was the time period which consisted of all phyla alive today and some that have gone extinct. The waters literally swarmed with life. This period which is called the Paleozoic period includes the Silurian era in which there were centipedes and millipedes, the Devonian with its sharks and amphibians. This also includes the next period which is the Mesozoic period which then includes dino's and of course within this period comes the first appearance of birds. This is a general overview of what was created during this period. So an overview of this is that the day includes first the Paleozoic and next the Mesozoic.

24 And God said: 'Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind.' And it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Now life moves to land. This is describing the Cenozoic period. The first mammals appear during this period.

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.' 27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. 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 creepeth upon the earth.' 29 And God said: 'Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed--to you it shall be for food; 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 a living soul, [I have given] every green herb for food.' And it was so. 31 And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. http://mediatheek.thinkquest.nl/~ll125/en/life-3.htm
The Cenozoic is the most current era, taking place from the last mass extinction of all land-based dinosaurs (approximately 65 million years ago) to the present day.
This era saw the rise of many mammals, such as whales, the great hunter cats, as well as Humans. But it also saw the rise of the birds, insects, and many new plants, including flowering plants.
Much of life as we know it today evolved during this era.

So we have in the general overview:
1. The Hadean, the Archeozoic and the Proterozioc eras.
2. The Paleozoic
3. The Mesozoic
4. The Cenozoic
All wrapped up in the Genesis narrative.

 

[AV1611VET]

Take a look at this:
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Indeed!

I can't think of a better place to start!

 

[Oncedeceived]

Indeed!

I can't think of a better place to start!

 

[Phred]

Take a look at this:
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And right from the git-go it's wrong. Our universe started approximately 13.75 BILLION years ago. It started as a singularity and expanded rather suddenly. Many, many stars came and went before we had the formation of star systems with planets as the heavier elements had to form inside stars. We're made of star-stuff. 4.35 BILLION years ago, give or take a few hundred million years, the earth was formed. God did not create the "heaven" and the "earth" at the same time as the verse suggests. Nor were they in order as the verse can be interpreted. Unless you're willing to consider the word, "and" to be 9 BILLION years worth of oratory it's simply wrong.

Science has shown that the early universe was dark (see below)
Up until recently, there was a conflict with Science due to the fact that it was considered impossible for a liquid form to be present during the formation of the universe. This also comes in below.

The early universe was a place of immense light and darkness. Stars forming and dying out. The concept of creating light and dark was something that planet-bound mortals thought up. This was not written by a deity.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

And, as we know now, day and night are caused by the rotation of the earth. Not the creation of light and "dark"...

6 And God said: 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.' 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. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. {P}

Only there is no heaven. We've now traveled all the way to the moon and back. No firmament.

In the beginning was ... a perfect liquid? - Technology & science - Science - msnbc.com

Liquid, not a gas The quark-gluon plasma was made in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider — a powerful atom smasher at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. Unexpectedly, the quark-gluon plasma behaved like a perfect liquid of quarks, instead of a gas, the physicists said.

Plasma is not a liquid. It is a fourth state of matter. How it behaves is what it is LIKE not what it IS.

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. 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.
This again was thought conflicting with Scientific findings, it was thought that the early earth was too hot for a liquid state but that has been shown not to be the case. Early earth did have water on its surface.

Not for at least half a billion years.

 

[Ar Cosc]

Blind post, but I think I know who resurrected this thread! (Just read the tags!)

 

[AV1611VET]

Blind post, but I think I know who resurrected this thread! (Just read the tags!)

They do that, I think, so as to keep from spamming.

A couple others spam my replies, thus showing their ... irony ... in using a breech of netiquette to complain about what they perceive to be a breech of netiquette.

 

[SkyWriting]

Science tells us that Earth has been around for a few billion years.

The scientific method is not properly used for proving the age of anything. Though it can be used to gather data on situations that we have sitting in front of us, it does not interpret that information.

There are hundreds of assumptions that must be made about history. Creationists use some biblical assumptions to arrive at a different set of conclusions about the formation of our current world.

 

[Itinerant Lurker]

The scientific method is not properly used for proving the age of anything. Though it can be used to gather data on situations that we have sitting in front of us, it does not interpret that information.

Curiously, scientists seem to disagree.

There are hundreds of assumptions that must be made about history. Creationists use some biblical assumptions to arrive at a different set of conclusions about the formation of our current world.

The basic assumption is that inferences supported by evidence are more sound than inferences contradicted by evidence. Which basically boils down to the fact that in science, as in life, we tend to go with the answers that work.




Lurker

 

[SkyWriting]

Originally Posted by SkyWriting

The scientific method is not properly used for proving the age of anything. Though it can be used to gather data on situations that we have sitting in front of us, it does not interpret that information.
​

Curiously, scientists seem to disagree.

Originally Posted by SkyWriting
There are hundreds of assumptions that must be made about history. Creationists use some biblical assumptions to arrive at a different set of conclusions about the formation of our current world.
​

The basic assumption is that inferences supported by evidence are more sound than inferences contradicted by evidence. Which basically boils down to the fact that in science, as in life, we tend to go with the answers that work. -Lurker

Perfectly stated. And the reason I abandoned my search for Truth through the reasoning of man. Clearly man's reasoning doesn't work worth spit. Ask your mother if she spanked you or why jails are full of do'ers of evil deeds. Only God provides answers as to why that happens. Man has a huge list of possible reasons....and we don't even think enough of them to TRY to rehabilitate criminals. We don't even try because we know our reasoning is so wrong.

 

[Gracchus]

Clearly man's reasoning doesn't work worth spit.

Clearly your reasoning doesn't so it is hardly surprising that you can't appreciate that the reasoning of others may be, and in some cases obviously is very effective indeed. But since your reasoning is by your own admission, worthless, your opinions are too. (I note that you say nothing about the worth of woman's reasoning, but your profile indicates you are a male so that is irrelevant, just as any conclusions you might reach are irrelevant because your reasoning is worthless!)

Ask your mother if she spanked you or why jails are full of do'ers of evil deeds. Only God provides answers as to why that happens.

Don't be ridiculous. Most mothers who spank do so in an endeavor to change behavior. It doesn't take God to figure that out.

Man has a huge list of possible reasons....and we don't even think enough of them to TRY to rehabilitate criminals. We don't even try because we know our reasoning is so wrong.

Rehabilitation has been tried. It doesn't really seem to work very well.

Psychologists know that punishment can change behavior if it is swift and sure. If it is neither swift nor certain then it isn't very effective. The problem of crime remains intractible, and strangely enough God himself has not intervened to solve it.

My own intuition is that we should forget trying to reform criminals until we have sure methods and concentrate on methods to prevent recidivism.

 

[AV1611VET]

Psychologists know that punishment can change behavior if it is swift and sure.

It takes time to peer review a person.

Even when a person is caught on videotape, he has a right to peer review.

So much for the scientific method, which can actually get criminals off the hook.

Some people today are even judged, 'not guilty by reason of insanity'; instead of 'guilty by reason of insanity'.

 

[SkyWriting]

Clearly your reasoning doesn't so it is hardly surprising that you can't appreciate that the reasoning of others may be, and in some cases obviously is very effective indeed. But since your reasoning is by your own admission, worthless, your opinions are too. (I note that you say nothing about the worth of woman's reasoning, but your profile indicates you are a male so that is irrelevant, just as any conclusions you might reach are irrelevant because your reasoning is worthless!)


Don't be ridiculous. Most mothers who spank do so in an endeavor to change behavior. It doesn't take God to figure that out.

Rehabilitation has been tried. It doesn't really seem to work very well.

Psychologists know that punishment can change behavior if it is swift and sure. If it is neither swift nor certain then it isn't very effective. The problem of crime remains intractible, and strangely enough God himself has not intervened to solve it.

My own intuition is that we should forget trying to reform criminals until we have sure methods and concentrate on methods to prevent recidivism.

So what are you waiting for?
You seem intent on proving my point.

 

[dad]

so i guess what i'm asking is, is how is the Bible right? What evidence that points towards the BIBLE being right and not science?

Both are right to some extent. The bible to the full extent..science to a limited extent. Give unto God what is God's...being right...and give science what is science's....scorn, laughter, disbelief, disgust, ....etc.

 

[Split Rock]

Both are right to some extent. The bible to the full extent..science to a limited extent. Give unto God what is God's...being right...and give science what is science's....scorn, laughter, disbelief, disgust, ....etc.

Sure dad... give "scorn, laughter, disbelief, disgust" to science. The same science that gives you the comfy life you take for granted. What has your dadology given us again? Nothing. Zero. The Big Goose Egg. But at least science has provided you with the technology to come here and sprout your "inerrant" (ha, ha) wisdom, huh?

 

[Split Rock]

Perfectly stated. And the reason I abandoned my search for Truth through the reasoning of man. Clearly man's reasoning doesn't work worth spit.

I guess that means the "man's reasoning" you use to interpret scripture is also worth spit. Correct?

It's cute the way you creationists always try so very hard to take man out of the equation by using a book written by men.

 

[Ar Cosc]

And now we wait for Dad to ignore the points made by Split Rock, and come back with the same drivel in a few days time. CF keeps rolling on!

 

[MoonLancer]

So much for the scientific method, which can actually get criminals off the hook.

Your ratios are way off. I guess you would rather go back to the dark ages and only rely on witnesses?

Now your back to inquisitions and witch hunts. Lucky you.