CHRISTIANS: What do you believe regarding the age of our universe?

[Vance]

And my response is the same, and I would appreciate a straight answer this time:

Is every false doctrine that has ever existed since the time of Christ identified as such in Scripture?

Have there been no false doctrines taught since the time the last book of the Bible was written and accepted as such?

If there have been false doctrines taught after the Scriptures were written, how do *you* recognize them as such?

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

Hi there, KLB,




This is what I said then...

Originally Posted By: Malaka

Anytime that a false doctrine was identified in the Word of God, then there are passages to support the fact.

I simply want the passages that substantiate your claim that "YEC-ism" is a false doctrine.


I don't want to hear "YEC's argue"... or "I think".... that just isn't the way the the Word of God teaches against false doctrines.... Paul was specific when he identified false doctrines. Christ was specific. Peter was specific.... in summary, God was always specific when false doctrine was identified.

~malaka~



and this is what I say now...


"ditto"


~malaka~

Then Arianism, Nestorianism, Marcionism and Monophysitism are not false doctrines then?

What say you address the Scripture I quoted in the linked posting?

 

[Sinai]

Although there is still a rather even division among the persons voting in this poll, the group of persons who think the universe is 11-20 billion years old and say that the Bible's creation account is not intended to be an accurate depiction of creation is barely in the lead with 10 votes.

Right behind (with 9 votes) are the folks who believe what the Bible says with regard to creation and also believe mainstream scientific findings and discoveries relating to creation (i.e., the universe is 11-20 billion years old, and that does not conflict with scriptures; both are true).

And 8 voters said that their interpretation of the Bible leads them to believe the universe is only 6-12 thousand years old, and any scientific evidence to the contrary should be disregarded and not believed.

 

[joelbarrutia]

Your pole is quite one sided ( I did not vote)

I am a YEC; however I don’t say "any scientific evidence to the contrary should be disregarded and not believed."

Instead, I look at all sides of the evidence, and then make an educated evaluation of the truth

 

[Vance]

Your pole is quite one sided ( I did not vote)

I am a YEC; however I don’t say "any scientific evidence to the contrary should be disregarded and not believed."

Instead, I look at all sides of the evidence, and then make an educated evaluation of the truth

I have never met a single person who has read a significant amount of non-Creationist books on this subject and remained a YEC. If you have, you are a rarity. Most YEC's get the vast majority of their information from the various Creationist ministries, like ICR, AIG and the likes of Hovind.

At least, being equally read on both positions you will at least not exhibit the proclivity of most YEC's to mischaracterize the basic concepts and theories of an old earth and evolution.

 

[joelbarrutia]

Ok, I am new here, so he is a little about me:

I am YEC
I real 80% books written by non-Christians (evolutionists or big bang theorists) and 20% or less of creationist, IRC or AIG..

There are a LOT of YEC's who have been mislead through different organizations, so, in order to get a better perspective (and less biased) I try to read as much pro-evolution books or web sites as possible.. ( I read talkorigins all the time)

I might be posting here a lot, I might not, I was here tonight, (not normal) and decided to say something... lots of other threads I saw needed a response, however I need to get some sleep


my real intrest is in cosmology and astrophysics, got to love it

 

[Vance]

Ah, then, you might want to check out Hugh Ross, if you have not already. He is a strong anti-evolutionist, but being a real, honest-to-God scientist, an astrophycisist, he knows that the universe and the Earth as old as they look: Billions of years.

His site is www.reasons.org and he was recently on Focus on the Family with Dobson, debating with a YEC on these issues. Not much of a contest, and by the end, Dobson was basically converted to Ross' point of view from what it sounded like.

 

[Sinai]

Your pole is quite one sided ( I did not vote)

I am a YEC; however I don’t say "any scientific evidence to the contrary should be disregarded and not believed."

Instead, I look at all sides of the evidence, and then make an educated evaluation of the truth

Sorry you think the poll is one sided, as I attempted to accurately summarize the major positions taken by persons regarding the age of the universe.

Although the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence indicates that the universe is an estimated 11-20 billion years old (measured in Earth-years looking back toward the time of creation), that is obviously much longer than the 6-12 thousand year age held by most young earth creationists as being the correct age of the universe. Because they think the scientific data is at odds with the word of God, they also think the scientific evidence showing the universe to be billions of Earth years old should be disregarded and not believed.

 

[leflings]

1. Flat earth.
2. Geocentrism.

Both of these were justified by scripture but were disproven based on God's other word.

Please tell me where was a flat earth justified? Admitted I don't know the bible as well as i would like to, but from Isaiah 40:22 i take that the earth is round, and always has been. And I would also like to know where you think the bible justifies geocentrism.

 

[Alessandro]

I believe from the creation account to today is about 6000 years.

We will all know soon enough.

 

[Sinai]

I believe from the creation account to today is about 6000 years.

We will all know soon enough.

Thanks for posting, Alessandro. Did you vote for 2A (since no one has yet voted for the other 6000-year option)?

 

[DayAge]

I am a Christian. I believe that each day is a long period of time. Each day starts with "And God said," but that does not occur until vs. 3. So, verses 1-2 are not included. They speak of the begining of the universe down to the aerly earth (13.7 Bya to ~3.8 Bya).

Genesis 1 is a chronology. Every toledot (generation, history) in Genesis gives a sequence of names or events that are in chronological order. If Gen. 1 was not in order it would be the only one.

It does not say "and the evening and morning were the first day," it says "and was evening and was morning, one day." Very odd. Days 2-5 are "a second day," "a third day," etc. The seventh day God stopped working and Hebrews 4:4-6 states that God is still at rest. Jesus alludes to this when He is accused of breaking the Sabbath. He states, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working," John 5:17. Jesus was only doing works of kindness not of labor and He was pointing out that God was sustaining creation during His Sabbath, not that He was still creating.

Days 1 & 2 are changes in the atmosphere, so they are hard to pin down. Photosynthetic life starts about 3.8 Bya, so day 1 starts about there. Day 2 ends ~3.2 Bya when land masses begin to rise from the global ocean. Day 3 would begin ~3.2 Bya and end after 1.25 Bya when the first advanced land plants MAY have started. Day 4 was another atmospheric change that would have ended by 543 Mya. Day 5 started ~543 Mya (cambrian explosion) and ended between ~10 and 40 Mya, with either the first fully marine mammals or modern types of whales. Day 6 started ~5 Mya with mammals that eventually lived with humans (wolves, mammoth, otters, skunks, etc). These fit the three catagories of land mammals mentioned for that day, Gen. 1:24-25. It ended ~60,000 years ago with the creation of Man.

God Bless

 

[lucaspa]

I am a Christian. I believe that each day is a long period of time. Each day starts with "And God said," but that does not occur until vs. 3. So, verses 1-2 are not included. They speak of the begining of the universe down to the aerly earth (13.7 Bya to ~3.8 Bya).

So you are a day-ager similar to Nephilimyr. Gee, we wouldn't have guessed from your screen name?

Verse 2 starts with "the earth was without form and void". So the earth is around in that 10 billion year age you just made. Except that the data says earth isn't around until 4.5 billion years ago.

The people who wrote the Bible thought, naturally for their time, that the earth was formed at the same time as the heavens.

Genesis

1 is a chronology.

Yes, but a problem is that it contradicts the chronology of Genesis 2.

It does not say "and the evening and morning were the first day," it says "and was evening and was morning, one day." Very odd. Days 2-5 are "a second day," "a third day," etc.

And that shows that they started counting on day 1.

The seventh day God stopped working and Hebrews 4:4-6 states that God is still at rest.

Out of context. Why do creationists do this? Why do they bear false witness against the Bible by taking it out of context? This letter is addressed to the Hebrews and is trying to convince them, within the confines of Judaism, that Jesus is the Son of God. After all, the vast majority of Jews rejected that idea. Hebrews 4 ties back to Hebrews 3 by saying that the disobedient Hebrews in the Exodus didn't enter "the rest" of the Promised Land but died in the wilderness. Just so will the Jews who reject Jesus die because of their unbelief and disobedience.

Days 1 & 2

are changes in the atmosphere, so they are hard to pin down.

Where do you get that in the text? A plain reading simply has God separating light from dark and putting up the crystal firmament over the earth. Nothing about changing the air at all.

Photosynthetic life starts about 3.8 Bya, so day 1 starts about there. Day 2 ends ~3.2 Bya when land masses begin to rise from the global ocean.

Sorry, but photosynthesis starts much later than that. About 2 billion years ago. And there was never a global ocean. The Canadian Shield was above water from the beginning. Not only can't you match with the text, but your Day Age theory can't correspond to the scientific data either.

Day 3 would begin ~3.2 Bya and end after 1.25 Bya when the first advanced land plants MAY have started.

Land plants don't appear until about 450 million years ago.

The rest of your sequence is just as flawed.

 

[Sinai]

Verse 2 starts with "the earth was without form and void". So the earth is around in that 10 billion year age you just made. Except that the data says earth isn't around until 4.5 billion years ago.

The people who wrote the Bible thought, naturally for their time, that the earth was formed at the same time as the heavens.

Not necessarily. Before you jump to that conclusion, you should be aware that Hebrew had no single word equivalent to our universe. Instead, the Hebrew equivalent for "universe" is the phrase the heavens and the earth.

Just curious, lucaspa: If you were using such a language, how would you express the concept that in the beginning God created the universe, but the earth was not yet created or that it was null and void?

 

[DayAge]

Well hello again lucaspa,
Yes, I am a dayager and you are a theistic evolutionist.
I did not say the earth had been around for 10 billion years. I said it was created in the ~10 billion year window that I described. And yes the earth was created ~4.5 Bya.

You say,
The people who wrote the Bible thought, naturally for their time, that the earth was formed at the same time as the heavens.
Can you show me where you get that idea. Each book of the Bible is not isolated from the rest. It is all inspired by the same GOD. Unless you think that it is primarily a human document.
So, where do I get my evidence. It comes from a book that may be older than Genesis, Job. Job 38:4-7 states that the angels and the stars were already there when God formed the earth.

I said that Genesis 1 is a chronology and you said,
Yes, but a problem is that it contradicts the chronology of Genesis 2.
They do not contradict, and as I showed you months ago, they both say that one man and one woman were created. If you do not know what the Hebrew verbs mean then you will think that a contradiction exists.

If evening and morning were meant for any particular 24 hour day then it would most naturally read "and the evening and the morning were, day X." This shows one linking verb. It does not, it says "And was evening and was morning, a X day."

Hebrews 3 & 4 speak of a rest that we enter into by faith. Harden of the heart through sin will keep you out 3:7,10,13,17-19; 4:2,6,etc. But the writer of Hebrews directly tells us that God's rest from creation is on going by connecting it with the rest we may still ennter along with God, 4:3-4,10.

Where do you get that in the text? A plain reading simply has God separating light from dark and putting up the crystal firmament over the earth. Nothing about changing the air at all.
Job 38:9 tells us that clouds caused the darkness.
And there was know crystal firmament. You must be a KJV only person. Genesis 1:6-7 tells us that it (raqia,the sky) was produced to separate the waters above (clouds, Psalm 104:3,13 and Proverbs 8:28) and the oceans below (Proverbs 8:28). Then in verse 8 we are given it's name, Heaven. Besides, how did the birds get above ('al) the firmament or exspanse (raqia) of Heaven (shamayim).

Photosynthesis existed 3.5 and 3.8 bya. Bill Schorf found microfossils of what he describes as 11 species of photosynthetic microbes similar to cyanobacteria, at Apex Chert (3.5 billion years old). Carbon-13 to carbon-12 ratios show the presence of photosyntesising life 3.8 Bya, at Isua Greenland. See NewScientist 22 Feb. 2003.
You can read about a debate over the age of these rocks and these life forms on line at. Go to space. com and see oldest life.
unfortunately they do not discuss the kind of life it is here.

I said MAY when giving a date for the oldest land plants. This is because the info is of YE origin, but I did contact one of the researches and recieved 50 pages of documentation, including how the research was conducted, how they tested for contamination, and photos of the pollen and spore samples recovered.
Even so you are wrong on your date for the origin of land plants. About 2 years ago Science Mag. showed that an evolutionary view of molecular clocks put land plants at ~700 Mya. Here is a link Boston University showing land plant spores at 510 Mya (see Middle Cambrian sect.). Go to Weston observatory paleobotany laboratory.


God Bless!! I can not post web links. For some reason they think I am a newbie. O ya the crash months ago.

P.S. This was a poll section not a debate section.

 

[DayAge]

lucaspa,
I'll get those links in about 3 or 4 entries.

 

[DayAge]

Hi

 

[DayAge]

one more, I think.

 

[DayAge]

Let's try it now.

Land plants.
evolutionary molecular clocks say ~700 Mya
http://www.science.psu.edu/journal/Spr2002/PlantsFungi-Sp02.htm
Fossil spores say ~510 Mya
http://www2.bc.edu/~strother/gc.html
Hear is a brief review of YE ~1.25 Bya plants
http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/36/36_3/plantfossils.html

God Bless

 

[TheInformedOne]

I have studied the Bible a great deal, and I have come to the conclusion that anyone who believes that the period of creation was not 6 days, or that God directed evolution happened holds views contrary to what the Bible teaches. Yes the word used for day can mean a period of time,not neccessarily 24 hours, but Genesis 1 also states each time, there was evening and morning each day, which gives us a standard to measure the authors intent in the passage, and determine that it did indeed mean a 24-hour period. And God directed evolution, the Bible says that God created each species according to its kind, and God directed evolution is nothing more than a compromise made by christians with weak theology who couldn't refute evolutionary theory. And as far as the young earth, the Bible says that there was roughly 1650 years (count) between creation and the flood, and we can trace back the flood (global or local) around 4400 years ago, which places the world at roughly 6000 years old. The idea of an old earth is a comprimise with the world, and is incorrect theology. God Bless.