Evidence for the age of the Earth/universe

[notto]

For years, Evols have searched in vain for a Human Civilization older than that which is written in Scripture. There is NONE, because Noah brought Human Intelligence and Civilization to this Planet, after his World was destroyed by Water.

Actually, that would be archeologist and historians and they certainly have found civilization earlier than 10,000 years ago.

If you consider agriculture to be part of civilization, then your argument is absurd. Evidence for cultivation in the Americas goes back to 10,000 years. How did these people get to the Americas so shortly after the flood, in large numbers, and start cultivating plants that were already growing there?

Can you define your definition of civilization?

If you assertion is correct, then we shouldn't find human population older than 10,000 years in tact. This is simply not the case.

The 'Mummy Cave' in Wyoming shows an uninterupted line of habitation for starting over 10,000 years ago. If that is the case, how did these people get to Wyoming in that timeframe post flood (for that matter, how did the cave get created out of flood sediment and turn to rock before these people arrived?)

The oldest remains we have found in the Americas are around 13,000 years old, found where they certainly would not be if there was a worldwide flood 3000 years after they died.

If your argument is to be treated as sound, please deal with the following issues related to settlement and civilization in the Americas

1) How did these people get to the Americas (several different locations, large populations, serveral different cultures).

2) Why do we find evidence that these people lived in caves that are formed out of sediment that was already turned to ROCK so soon after the supposed flood.

3) How come the history and religion of these people doesn't reflect the God of Noah or record any history of the flood that supposedly had just receeded from the world in which they were living.

 

[2Pillars]

Dear Notto,

Wrong analogy my friend. What our scientist discovered were the remains of the pre-historic beings who were created, from the water, on the 5th Day, Gen 1:21. These creatures had been inhabiting this Planet for Millions of years. They are called Prehistoric by our scientists, but sons of God, by God

Gen. 1:21 says that "Every Living Creature that Moveth" was brought forth from the water on Day 5. Science agrees that all living things originated in the water.

History records that the first Human Cities were built on this planet (10K +- years ago) by Noah's great grandson after the Univeral flood on the 1st. Heaven which was beyond this world.

Noah's descendants founded the first Civilization, on this Planet, less than 100 miles from the mountains of Ararat. Noah's sons already knew about agriculture, city building, smelting, and other technologies, when they arrived.

Noah's grandsons simply walked out of the mountains and began raising crops in the fertile flood plains just south of the mountains of Ararat.

The History of Human Civilization on this planet began in the Cradle of Civilization, in Mesopatamia. From there came math, writing, commerce, technology, etc. All of the things which we call Human Civilization, Today.

God Bless

 

[notto]

Wrong analogy my friend. What our scientist discovered were the remains of the pre-historic beings who were created, from the water, on the 5th Day, Gen 1:21. These creatures had been inhabiting this Planet for Millions of years. They are called Prehistoric by our scientists, but sons of God, by God

Gen. 1:21 says that "Every Living Creature that Moveth" was brought forth from the water on Day 5. Science agrees that all living things originated in the water.

History records that the first Human Cities were built on this planet (10K +- years ago) by Noah's great grandson after the Univeral flood on the 1st. Heaven which was beyond this world.

The History of Human Civilization on this planet began in the Cradle of Civilization, in Mesopatamia. From there came math, writing, commerce, technology, etc. All of the things which we call Human Civilization, Today.

God Bless

The history of Western Civilization does not equal the history of Human Civilization. You need to read a few more books. Japan, China, and The Americas had civilizations that had all of those things without being influenced by anything out of Mesopotamia.

History records these things too. You just seem to be ignoring it.

Where does 'history' record these things? Do you have some references that deal with civilization world wide? Do they discuss China, Japan, and the Americas? I would certainly like to see the documented movement of 'civilization' from the Mesopotamia to these areas by these historians you reference.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The history of Western Civilization does not equal the history of Human Civilization. You need to read a few more books. Japan, China, and The Americas had civilizations that had all of those things without being influenced by anything out of Mesopotamia.

History records these things too. You just seem to be ignoring it.

Where does 'history' record these things? Do you have some references that deal with civilization world wide? Do they discuss China, Japan, and the Americas? I would certainly like to see the documented movement of 'civilization' from the Mesopotamia to these areas by these historians you reference.

i have an easier request.
show the relationship of Mesopotamian cuneiform to Chinese characters. you will be the first in the world to demonstrate a necessary developmental connection. wow world famous and we heard it first here.

---
post posting edit

for those unaware of the issues see:
for simple intro to oracle bones:
http://chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/aa_oracle02a.htm

for mesopotamian cuneiform:
http://www.jaars.org/museum/alphabet/galleries/ancient.htm

for the discussion of single point then diffusion versus multiple independent inventions of writing see:
http://www.english.uga.edu/~hypertxt/040699sci-early-writing.html
http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/eghier.html
http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/visible/visible.html


mayan and other mesoamerican writing appears to be independent:
http://pages.prodigy.com/GBonline/ancwrite-old.html

nor is egyptian as first out of the picture, although mesopotamian dating seems to allow it to be several hundred years older:
http://www.ancientscripts.com/egyptian.html



but the bottom line is simply to assert the primacy of mesopotamian is blind to modern scholarship

the best general site to get a handle on the issues appears to be:
http://www.ancientscripts.com/ws_origins.html

i am beginning to dislike these he said-she said discussions, devoid of any factual input and seemingly absence of any serious research, so i offer writing as a specific topic for you to present your theory that everything started in the middle east with the tower of babel (presumably) about what? 6K years ago

 

[2Pillars]

The history of Western Civilization does not equal the history of Human Civilization. You need to read a few more books. Japan, China, and The Americas had civilizations that had all of those things without being influenced by anything out of Mesopotamia.

History records these things too. You just seem to be ignoring it.

Where does 'history' record these things? Do you have some references that deal with civilization world wide? Do they discuss China, Japan, and the Americas? I would certainly like to see the documented movement of 'civilization' from the Mesopotamia to these areas by these historians you reference.

Please provide foundational factual basis of your objection -- dates and references, please?


God Bless

 

[notto]

Please provide foundational factual basis of your objection -- dates and references, please?


God Bless

I asked first. You are the one making assertions. Please provide foundational factual basis of your assertion. Dates and references, please? I gave a list of my objections to the silly notion that man or civilization started only 10,000 years ago in the mideast. Any one of those things in my earlier list can be verified with a simple googl search.

What historians tell us that civilization began (and only began) in Mesopotamia. I think you will find that the are discussing Western Civilization and not the whole world.

 

[2Pillars]

Dear Readers,


Human Civilization began in Mesopotamia. It includes writing, math, and other Human evidences.

Noah arrived some 10,000 + - years ago. The first villages are some 9,000 years old and are in Mesopotamia. Evols continue to support Scripture since they always list cites younger than those of Mesopotamia.


God Bless

 

[PaladinValer]

Again, writing developed in Egypt first by about 50-100 years before it appeared in Mesopotamia.

Mathematics were probably best utilized by the Egyptians first as well, as well as other "human evidences," to use your word for it.

Quite frankly, not all of Mesopotamia was really unified; just the southern parts. The rest was sparsely "settled" by semi-nomadic tribes and peoples. What the area was however was the great center of commerse in the Western world at that time.

 

[2Pillars]

Again, writing developed in Egypt first by about 50-100 years before it appeared in Mesopotamia.

Is this another one of your personal claim? If not, then, please provide reference to this disorted assertion.


God Bless

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Dear Readers,


Human Civilization began in Mesopotamia. It includes writing, math, and other Human evidences.

Noah arrived some 10,000 + - years ago. The first villages are some 9,000 years old and are in Mesopotamia. Evols continue to support Scripture since they always list cites younger than those of Mesopotamia.


God Bless

i've already linked to essays on writing.

the next big issue is burials, evidence of human acknowledge of the crucialness of death

Glenn Morton sums up data best in:

So, the better preservation of bodies disposed of via mortuary practices may
explain the abundance of fossils found at a Spanish site called Sima de los
Huesos. Paul G. Bahn relates,

"Atapuerca is not a site, not even a series of sites, but an
entire sierra filled with Neolighic and Bronze Age cave
settlements and burials, Roman and medieval material, and cave
art of various periods. Yet the sierra's most important remains
are far more ancient, for it is the world's largest known
repository of fossil humans from the Middle Pleistocene, between
780,000 and 127,000 years ago, some thrown into a deep pit in
what may be the world's oldest known burials. Now even more
ancient human bones, some perhaps a million years old have been
found."~Paul G. Bahn, "Treasure of the Sierra Atapuerca",
Archaeology, January/February, 1996, pp 45-48, p. 45

The ritual treatment of the bodies has resulted in this single site
providing 90 percent of all pre-Neandertal bones ever found in Europe. 1600
bones have been recovered from the pit and only 2% of the material has been
removed so far. The remains of between 32 and 50 bodies so far recovered
average between 5 foot seven inches to over 6 feet tall and would have
weighed an average of 140 pounds. One of the skulls has a cranial capacity
of 1,390 cubic centimeters which is close to the modern average. Bahn writes,

"Studies of teeth indicate that the human bones here come from at
least 32 individuals, possibly 50. The bones are mixed up, but
all parts of the skeleton are present, and males and females are
equallly represented. Most are from adolescents and young adults
aged between 13 and 22, and more than 30 percent are between 17
and 19; the youngest is about four and the oldest 35. Since less
than a quarter of these individuals lived beyond their early
twenties, they cannot represent a full pupulation, and it is
likely the older people were disposed of elsewhere. Arsuaga
believes that over several generations bodies were carried into
the cave from an entrance, now lost, near the pit and tossed into
the shaft in a form of mortuary ritual that may point to some
embryonic religious belief. The absence of herbivore bones and
stone tools indicates that this was not an occupation site, and
the lack of carnivore damage(apart from a few inevitable cave
bear claw- or tooth-marks) suggests that the bones were not left
there by carnivores."~Paul G. Bahn, "Treasure of the Sierra
Atapuerca", Archaeology, January/February, 1996, pp 45-48, p. 48

The Sima site dates to sometime greater than 300,000 years old. (J.L.
Arsuaga et al, "Three New Human Skulls from the Sima de los Huesos Middle
Pleistocene site in Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain," Nature April 8, 1993, p 534.

from: http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199706/0103.html

then look at Australian aboriginals in:
http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/culture/prehist.html

commonly accepted as being 40K-60K years old inhabitation.

and of course, my interest, Chinese:

from: http://www.china.org.cn/e-gudai/index-1.htm

The first light of Chinese civilization revealed itself 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, as indicated by the ruins of the Daxi Culture in Sichuan and Hubei provinces, the Majiapang Culture in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, the Hemudu Culture in eastern Zhejiang and the Yangshou Culture along the middle reaches of the Yellow River and its main tributaries.

 

[2Pillars]

i've already linked to essays on writing.

the next big issue is burials, evidence of human acknowledge of the crucialness of death

Glenn Morton sums up data best in:

from: http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199706/0103.html

then look at Australian aboriginals in:
http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/culture/prehist.html

commonly accepted as being 40K-60K years old inhabitation.

and of course, my interest, Chinese:

from: http://www.china.org.cn/e-gudai/index-1.htm

Dear rmwilliams,

Perhaps, you did not see my previous posting before, that's why you could not see where I stand with regards to this matter! Let me cut-and-paste the quote (position) in order to have a basis for our contention.

Dear Notto,

Wrong analogy my friend. What our scientist discovered were the remains of the pre-historic beings who were created, from the water, on the 5th Day, Gen 1:21. These creatures had been inhabiting this Planet for Millions of years.

They are called Prehistoric Beings by our scientists, but sons of God, by God

Gen. 1:21 says that "Every Living Creature that Moveth" was brought forth from the water on Day 5. Science agrees that all living things originated in the water.

History records that the first Human Cities were built on this planet (10K +- years ago) by Noah's great grandson after the Univeral flood on the 1st. Heaven which was beyond this world.

Therefore, I believe your reference or historical citings do not refute any of my postion. In fact it only strengthen my stand of the Pre-Historic Cretures created from the waters. Genesis 1:21-22.

Thank you for providing me additional facts for my future reference.


God Bless

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Dear rmwilliams,

Perhaps, you did not see my previous posting before, that's why you could not see where I stand with regards to this matter! Let me cut-and-paste the quote (position) in order to have a basis for our contention.

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Therefore, I believe your reference or historical citings do not refute any of my postion. In fact it only strengthen my stand of the Pre-Historic Cretures created from the waters. Genesis 1:21-22.

Thank you for providing me additional facts for my future reference.


God Bless

what can i say?
i confirms my belief that science advances because the people involved are interested in the truth and theology doesn't because people are willing to invent their own truth without reference to either the facts or the Scriptures.

since your theory is held, most probably by a population of 1, or some other small integer, i don't expect to be contributing on this thread.

o'well. nice talking with you anyhow.

 

[Vance]

Do the YEC's have any scientific answers to these issues raised in the OP?

And 2Pillars, how exactly do you get 10,000 years ago for Noah from Scripture? It sounds to me like you have just looked to see what the oldest known civilization was and chose to date Noah just before that time.

 

[Eluzai]

I don't know very much about this topic, but I will say what I know about the age of the universe:
"1. The observed size of the universe."
- Varies depending on the cosmologial constant (which is completely arbitrary) and what redshift realy means, also the rate of expansion in the inflation was 10^36 (or around there) so the majority of the expansion of the universe took place in a few seconds. Red shift readings have many issues and have had since the 50s!!!

"2. Correspondingly, the age of the light observed being orders of magnitude order than 6KY."
- Light has no measurable 'age', this is a falsehood, its has a (most likely fixed) speed and the distance it has theoretically travelled is used to calculate the time taken for the light to reach us. This point number 2 is just a rephrase of point number 1. Redundant.

"8."
- Redundant. This is just a specific example of point number 1.

"12. Cosmic microwave background/size of universe etc."
- Redundant. Come on quit with "size of universe" point 1!!! It's only one point. Robert Gentry explains the CMB using young earth. Although to be fair CMB didn't fit with the BB so they had to had inflation, but now it looks like it doesn't fit with inflation either?!?

"15. What makes the old universe so overwhelmingly compelling is not any individual piece of evidence, but the fact that so many different lines of evidence, based on totally different principles, and subject to different uncertainties, all independently converge on the same age."
- Well we only have one piece so far... size...

"16. We get the _same_ age (within errors) for the universe from:

* Backwards extrapolation of the expansion pattern"
- Well obviously who would come up with an expantion theory (inflation) that didn't fit with other theories? That would just be stupid. The theory to explain why and how the universe is supposedly billions of years old cannot be used as proof for itself.

"* Age of the oldest star clusters"
- Dependent on distance (point 1.)

"* Nucleocosmochronology"
- It's reliant on our understanding of how a star is formed being without error. It also assumes that over the millions or billions of years the star is burning it never gains or loses any mass. Besides the point this makes is already covered by other radiation dating methods...

Number 17 is interesting... do you have anymore info on where that's from? Also I don't know if you ment to leave: "This is pretty new evidence so I don't think the Yecs even have a rebottle but its so damning that whatever they come up with will just make them look more foolish."
in but it is quite offensive...

It's an interesting area... but only the first few chapters of the first book of the Bible so I don't realy look into it anymore. As long as it doesnt get in the way of your faith young old or in between maters little I think, the Bible is full of much more exciting and important things

Btw Vance I'm well impressed by the speed of your replies Don't you ever get tired of the young/old arguement?

Good points though I'm going to a debate about it tomorrow... so this has me all fired up

 

[Vance]

Yes, I do get tired of the argument, but I think that it is important for the effective presentation of the Gospel message today, so this helps inspire me. But, really, it is not even the age of the earth arguments that are so crucial, but the teaching that if the earth is NOT old, then Scripture is wrong and can't be trusted, or conversely, that if you accept Scripture, you accept a young earth.

 

[Eluzai]

But, really, it is not even the age of the earth arguments that are so crucial, but the teaching that if the earth is NOT old, then Scripture is wrong and can't be trusted, or conversely, that if you accept Scripture, you accept a young earth.

Yea I know what you mean... I would say though that I think teaching exclusively old or young is wrong from a Christian perspective... I don't think thats our place. I think the resurection is the place to validate the Bible from and let people make up their own minds in Genesis.

 

[Micaiah]

The gospel is important to defend, but it is not the only truth from Scripture we should defend.

I can think of a range of scenarios where a person claims to be a Christian yet has some fundamental flaws in their theology and behaviour that would make you question their beliefs.

 

[herev]

I can think of a range of scenarios where a person claims to be a Christian yet has some fundamental flaws in their theology and behaviour that would make you question their beliefs.

I'm not really trying to pick here Micaiah, but this is the problem I see too often. I can judge another's work, their sins, their actions, their attitude, but I simply do not believe it is my point to EVER question anyone's Christianity. I do not think you mean it, and it may be idiomatic as there is actually a language barrier for English speaking peoples of different cultures, but when you say "a person claims to be a Christian" and then say you "question their beliefs" it sounds (in this part of the States anyway) that you are suggesting that you are questioning or doubting their salvation--That's simply not a line I ever cross. If someone tells me they are saved--have a saving relationship with Christ, I have no way to doubt that--maybe their actions (or lack thereof), but not the salvation
Tommy

 

[Micaiah]

Agreed. We should be careful of judging, but are exhorted to be discerning.

By their fruits you will know them...

 

[herev]

Agreed. We should be careful of judging, but are exhorted to be discerning.

By their fruits you will know them...

WEll God bless you if you can walk that fine line and not fall into judging