Age Of The Universe

FaithT said:

What else apart from the Bible or theological things agree with this?

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Bishop Usshers book was written 500 years ago. This is a history of the last 6,000 years. I studied Ancient History in High School and I still have my textbooks. The Garden of Eden was in the Tigris - Euphrates river valley. The Euphrates river is in the news right now because the Bible talks about how the river is going to dry up.
The big thing with Adam and Eve was the beginning of civilization. People were hunter gathers and they followed the hurds of animals. Adam was a food producer. One son grew the food, the other son took care of the animals. The animals on Noah's ark were the animals from Eden that we read about in our Bible. Science has put a LOT of work into the study of how civilization and food production spread from the middle east to Europe. If you want people you have to be able to feed them. Today we are producing more food then ever and we have a big population.
So we have biology, botney, geology, astrophysics, literature like the Illiad and the Odyssey. Just to name a few of the many many areas of science that we can study to better understand the Bible and the message God has for us. He wants us to know what He is doing. As we are told, all the books in the world could not contain what Jesus has done.
John 21 25
Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
Remember when God was going to punish Cain for killing his brother. Genesis 4:14 " I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Who was Cain worried about killing him? There was violence in the earth back in the days of Adam and Eve. Genesis 6:11 "the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence." At the time death was not from disease like today. It was from violence and people hunting each other down. I did a study on the remains that they do find like Chedder man. They have arrow or spear heads in them or their skull is crushed. That was the cause of death back then. Before Adam and Eve.

FaithT said:

Do you believe God created the Universe billions of years ago or approx. 6,000 years ago and why?
Also, is there any credible, scientific evidence for a young earth?

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No, I don't. But that doesn't mean I believe he didn't do that. I don't know what to think of young-earth creationism. But I worry that it may seem to discredit the Bible and Christianity among atheists, agnostics who already believe Sacred Scripture and Christianity are absurd.

Prof. John Lennox convinced me that Genesis says nothing about our planet's age.

Seven Days that Divide the World

FaithT said:

What else apart from the Bible or theological things agree with this?

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All the Genealogies in the Bible agree that Adam and Eve lived 6,000 years ago. Also Science can verify this. Based on archeology evidence. This is when man transitioned from being a food producer to a food gather. The science of botany for example can verify when food went from being wild to being cultivated. Dogs went from hunting to herding. The goats and sheep are said to be the first animals to be domesticated for clothing. We read about this in the Bible also. Gensis 3:21 "The LORD God made tunics of [animal] skins for Adam and his wife and clothed them." When I was a kid we did not have thin insulated clothing. If we wanted to be warm we wore wool or leather winter jackets. I had a Leather Jacket stolen from the coat rack at church once. Or we had down clothing we would wear.

In Bible School teacher training I studied up on a program to give a goat to poor people. The children can drink the milk or put it on their cereal and they are a lot more healthy.

BillMcEnaney said:

I don't know what to think of young-earth creationism.

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I see no problem because they say nothing about what was here before Adam and Eve.

Diamond7 said:

I see no problem because they say nothing about what was here before Adam and Eve.

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Maybe there's no problem. But since Prof. John Lennox convinced me that Genesis doesn't tell us the age of the earth, I wonder why young earth creationists believe it's only about 6,000 years old. Maybe it's that young. Since God is always truthful, it's hard to know why it would bat young when scientific evidence makes that time seem much, much too short.

Maybe I'm biased because I took six science courses in college, including geology, paleontology, and microbiology. I don't know whether to believe in evolution. Then again, I've learned enough about the theory to think many of its Christian critics misinterpret it.

BillMcEnaney said:

Maybe there's no problem. But since Prof. John Lennox convinced me that Genesis doesn't tell us the age of the earth, I wonder why young earth creationists believe it's only about 6,000 years old.

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Genesis Chapter 2 begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden 6,000 years ago. So the ONLY question has to do with Genesis Chapter ONE. There are ONLY 31 verses in this chapter. The most important word is the first word in the Bible: Beginning. The most important letter is the letter B. So why does the Bible start with the second letter in the alphabet and not the first letter? The first letter is an A if you turn the A upside down you have a symbol that represents the horns on the lead animal in a herd. The letter B represents a tent or a tabernacle. The first letter in the Bible represents God's desire to dwell with and become a part of his creation.

So we have the word beginning. You could devote the rest of your life to studying this word. You're not going to understand anything in the rest of the Bible if you do not understand the meaning of the word Beginning. We see "In the Beginning Created God". Now we start to draw on the rest of the Bible to help us with these (3) three words. We are told in Isaiah 46:10 "God declares the end from the beginning." We see this in Genesis 1:3 "God said". So we have God says, God declares and we are told in the Beginning God created. There are actually seven words so the next two word are Heaven and Earth.

So we have in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. Now we have two more words to figure out: Heaven and the word Earth. When their beginning was and when God created them. Again there are ONLY seven words here so we do not have a LOT to work with in that regard. We have to study; the meaning of those words. We have to expose their meaning. We can do this through a study of the Hebrew Language and the meaning of the Hebrew letters in these seven words.

Now let's look at Genesis chapter 2 and I am going to cut this WAY short. There we have the word Generations. We already established that Genesis Chapter Two begins 6,000 years ago. So many books would be needed to explain all of this that even every book in the world would not be enough. There are 200,000 books in the Harvard Library that deal with what we read in Genesis chapter one. If 200,000 books can not get the job done, then how am I going to accomplish that in this little tiny post on a message board? Yet God can take all of Creation and condense it down to a few word if anyone wants to study what those word mean. If they want to devote their life to understanding.

Just remember, God declares and God said has no meaning outside of the beginning because God is outside of time. He has no beginning and no end. If we go to Science for help we see that in the beginning God created the elements. We are made of of elements with atoms in them. So God created Adam from Atoms. But first He had to create the elements or the Atoms. He did that in the stars and that is why we are star stuff.

So in the beginning God created Adam and Eve and Eden. But what did He create them FROM and how long did it take him to make the elements to create Adam and Eve?

FaithT said:

Well, im not saying that they have to be admired per se.’ I’m not a scientist so I must rely on those who are reputable to teach me. Why would I want to learn from someone who doesn’t have the respect of his peers?

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Because this then makes what you seek an intellectual endeavor. 'Whoever has the best sounding knowledge and facts for me to mentally weight up is what I will believe in and follow'. This is not faith. Faith is believing regardless of what your intellect might try and tell you. The intellect is extreamly prideful and vein, it wants to be correct at all costs and does not like to take a backseat.
Proverbs 18:12 “Before a downfall the heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor”

Do you believe Peter get out of the boat and started to walk to Jesus? If yes why do you believe that?
You wouldn't believe it because facts show men can walk on water, since facts show the very opposite. No doubt every scientist who you say are reputable and look up to would laugh at the very notion of Peter walking on water and say that is a fairy tale. Think about who you follow. The only trustworthy one to follow is God. Not a man no matter how educated he or she happens to be.

Peter got out and walked due to the amount of faith that he had, but then his intellect interrupted his faith. Don't let your intellect reign supreme it will lead you away from faith.
Luke 9:23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Diamond7, you tell us that the earth is 6,000 years old when I'm asking you to argue that it's that age. Maybe you could give us a list of premises and that a conclusion saying, "Therefore, the earth is 6,000 years old." The word "beginning" could denote an unspecified period including the 6,000 years God supposedly took to create the world.

I don't see your point about the letters "A" and "B," partly because the Old Testament is in Hebrew and the New one is in Koine Greek.

Young-earth creationists say that God created in six 24-your days when those people don't seem to notice that in Genesis 1-2, Moses uses the Hebrew word for "day" in about four senses. Sometimes he means a 24-hour day. Other times he's writing about an indefinite period. We use the word when we tell other people that the economy thrived in President Calvin Coolidge's day. When Genesis reminds us that, "there was evening and there was morning, the first day, that distinguishes between morning and evening. But it doesn't say how many hours passed between the evening and the morning.

There are 24 hours between 6 o'clock this evening and that time tomorrow evening. But the sun will come up hours before 6 p.m. tomorrow. Besides, even an Ancient Israel, the times when the sun rose and set depended on the time of year. No offense to anyone. But to me, young-earth creationism seems simplistic because today's young-earth creationists often ignore ancient history and Ancient Mediterranean culture.

In another thread, you wrote that the only evidence for Christianity. But that sounds absurd when I remember Biblical archeology, Josephus's writings, extrabiblical documents from the early Church, St. Thomas Aquinas's arguments, for God's existence, and even scientific evidence for Eucharistic miracles. Besides, since the Third Council of Carthage published the Bible's canon in 397 AD, it's easy to see that the Church predated the Bible as we know it.

FaithT said:

I also know that Genesis doesn’t fit with the evidence.

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Genesis fits perfectly with the evidence. If you do not see that then either you do not understand Genesis or you do not understand Science. Or perhaps you do not understand either one. No one has ever been able to show any contradiction between Science and the Bible. Lots of people have shown that they do not understand one or the other or both.

This is why we use Bishop Usshers book written 500 years ago. There is no way he could have been influenced by modern science today. Gerald Schroeder uses Maimonides (12th century Egypt), and Nahmanides (13th century Spain). Because there is no way either one of them could have been influenced by modern Science.

BillMcEnaney said:

Diamond7, you tell is that the earth is 6,000 years old when I'm asking you to argue that it's that age.

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I said Adam and Eve lived 6,000 years ago in the Garden of Eden in the Tigris Euphrates River valley in what History calls Ancient Mesopotamia. There were two groups of people alive at the time. We see this in the Bible when Cain says: "whoever finds me will kill me." Genesis 4:14. Clearly there were people alive OTHER than just Cain, Adam and Eve. He had already killed his brother at that time.

We have many ways to established that Adam and Eve lived 6,000 years ago. DNA shows this. We can trace the DNA of Eve and we can trace the DNA of Adam and the genealogies in the Bible confirms this. Bishop Usshers well-documented book from 500 years ago confirms this.

There is a book called: The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry by Bryan Sykes
This book is getting to be outdated but it will explain a lot of the science to you. Wiki has a lot of information about this also.


A word you need to learn is a haplogroup. There is mitochondrial DNA and Y Chromosome DNA for the mean. This is the best evidence we have to verify the genealogies in the Bible. Haplogroup J-M304 is divided into two main subclades (branches), J-M267 and J-M172.

FaithT said:

Do you believe God created the Universe billions of years ago or approx. 6,000 years ago...?

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He, at least, furnished Creation ca. 6,000 years ago, starting with Light. The unfurnished "Heavens & Earth" (prior to Day 1) did not [yet] support life as we know it. But we have no way of knowing how long that period was.

FaithT said:

...and why?

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The Bible says as much.

Diamond7, why did you cite the article Eve when it says that young earth creationists were mistaken in believing that the research confirmed the creation story in Genesis? After all, that doesn't support young earth creationism. The article even says that mitochondrial Eve may have predated mitochondrial Adam. If she did, that contradicts Genesis. But Pope Pius XII still gave experts permission to study evidence that the human body evolved. Catholics believe that an immortal soul makes a human body human. So Pius XII's permission suggests that human-like creatures may have predated Adam and Eve. I wouldn't use that article to support young earth creationism, especially now when I believe that kind of creationism seems absurd, given what evolutionary biology tells us.

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In Humani generis, Pius XII writes:

35. It remains for Us now to speak about those questions which, although they pertain to the positive sciences, are nevertheless more or less connected with the truths of the Christian faith. In fact, not a few insistently demand that the Catholic religion take these sciences into account as much as possible. This certainly would be praiseworthy in the case of clearly proved facts; but caution must be used when there is rather question of hypotheses, having some sort of scientific foundation, in which the doctrine contained in Sacred Scripture or in Tradition is involved. If such conjectural opinions are directly or indirectly opposed to the doctrine revealed by God, then the demand that they be recognized can in no way be admitted.

36. For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of faith.[11] Some however, rashly transgress this liberty of discussion, when they act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question.​

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Humani generis

I don't think we can calculate this when we can only view like 10% of the universe.

Not to mention that galaxies seem to be moving towards each other wich makes no sense in big bang models since you would assume everything would move out from the center, which we don't know where the center is.

There's reason to doubt the particulars of the science.

FaithT said:

According to Diamond, science supports Genesis and vice versa And if we don’t think so, we’re ignorant of either science, Scripture or both.

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Maybe diamond believes that's easy to see when we read Genesis with no secondary sources to help us interpret it. Someone told me about some American English expressions with different meanings in England. Here in the States, there's a crude synonym for "sodomy." In England, that phrase means something like "an effortless job."

How can I interpret Genesis with no background to help me when I don't even understand some parts of an English dialect from England? Some atheists assume that the Bible describes chattel slavery when they read the word "slave" in it. But in Scripture, the word signifies indentured servitude. But if the translator wrote "servant" instead of "slave," the word wouldn't have connoted chattel slavery. His Majesty King Charles III pays his servants their salaries. So they're not chattel slaves.

Sometimes I watch Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, a TV program where the host praises food by saying that it's ridiculous, the bomb, or even sick. If I used those expressions to describe the food in my favorite restaurant, the chef probably would think I hated my meal.

I dont believe its possible to date the earth scientifically, because we dont understand or take account for the power of God.

If we take a look at the book of jonah, it seems that God can accelerate growth. If God can make a plant grow overnight, why cant God do it with every form of vegetation.



5So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. 6And the Lord God prepared a [a]plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So he was very grateful for the plant. 7But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. 8And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

9Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

And he said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”

10But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which [c]came up in a night and perished in a night


Healing is also another example of accelerated growth, the tissue is repaired, broken bones fixed, cripples walking, the body is repaired instantly.

BillMcEnaney said:

Diamond7, you tell us that the earth is 6,000 years old

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I said Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden 6,000 years ago. This is based on ONE word in Genesis 2:4 "generations"

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

This is difficult for people that so much in Genesis depends on the meaning of one word. Today we use the word genealogies. With animals we use the word pedigree. We do see thisagain in Genesis 2:4, 1This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in His own likeness. 2Male and female He created them, and He blessed them. And in the day they were created, He called them “man.”

There are lots of diamonds in this: "this is the book of the generation", "In the day God created man", notice he called them man. אָדָ֔ם ’ā-ḏām.