Geologic Proof of an old earth creation.

[coffee4u]

Psalms 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 come to mind.

Psalms 90
4 A thousand years in your sight are like a day

And we all know that Peter elaborates on that further
2 Peter 3:8
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
Neither verse is talking about creation but rather the nature of God. God is not held by time but he created time for us and the world.
The first prophesy of the coming of Jesus is given to Adam and Eve.
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
God already knew this would happen before he created them.
Just because God is outside of time does not mean we and the world are. We are very much held to time. The days given in Genesis are to do with our world not to do with God's nature.

If you wanted to say anything about this in connection to creation it would be that God being outside of time could make trying to 'date' anything the completely wrong question to be asking or looking at. All it does is make the how of creation even more mysterious, even less obtainable for us to know anything about it.

Job 38:4
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
I assume we know nothing and can know nothing. Saying we understand it all because we made some calculations is absolute arrogance. God told us he created over 6 days, will you go up to him and say but Lord the rocks claimed 6 billion years! Will you set him straight?
Exodus 20

And God spoke all these words:
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Yet you would rather accept rocks that some atheistic humanist aged than Gods own words.

 

[coffee4u]

Say I want to take a trip from New York to Los Angeles. (About 2500 miles for argument sake.) I tell you I made the trip in 5 days driving for 10 hours a day. A quick calculation tells you I averaged about 50 miles/hour to make that time.

You want to make the same trip and want to borrow my car, but you find out that my car’s top speed is 10 miles/hour, so I couldn’t possibly get there in less than 25 days. I don’t tell you that I had a different engine in my car when I made the trip, which made it possible. I didn’t lie to you, but you still have a legitimate reason to not believe me.

It is the same way with the earth. If God’s power is unlimited, then maybe he could create the earth in 6 days, but if he created it in such a way to make it look like it was 4 billion years old, then he still gives me a reason not to believe him. This is what LeafByNiggle means. Why give humans a reason to not believe.

And when the alternative explanation is right there in front of us and much more likely, why wouldn’t it be more likely that God would use a metaphorical description since most of humanity doesn’t really comprehend the length of time for creation, even if we understand the numbers.

Who says it looks 4 billion years old? Who exactly is saying this?

Humanity doesn't even know what 4 billion years looks like our life is but 80 years. This is dabbling in something that nobody has any idea about based on what? Present principles and some calculations? Those people are not Godly people but atheistic humanists, will you trust them to interpret scripture for you?

What do you see when you look out at nature? I see grass and trees and sky.

Your car is something you can do in the present. Others can see and witness it. Who is verifying that the past is the same as the present? Nobody, its being assumed. So many assumptions and all of them contradict scripture.

 

[SuperCow]

Neither verse is talking about creation but rather the nature of God. God is not held by time but he created time for us and the world.

Creation is part of the nature of God. You cannot separate the two just because you don’t like the implications.

The first prophesy of the coming of Jesus is given to Adam and Eve.

Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
God already knew this would happen before he created them.

The first prophecy (which you correctly noted) is in response to the first sin. This treads into topics heavily debated in other threads. There is no scripture in the Bible that says that God chose to create man in a way that he would fail. Otherwise all of our actions would also be predetermined.

Just because God is outside of time does not mean we and the world are. We are very much held to time. The days given in Genesis are to do with our world not to do with God's nature.

And if Genesis 1 is not at least semi-metaphorical, how do you explain the creation of light on day 1, plants on day 3, but the sun and moon are not created until day 4.

Going back to day 3, look at Genesis 1:11

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

Now in Genesis 1:12, the plan from the previous verse is put into action and is in the past tense:

“And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

When have you ever known grass, herbs and trees yielding seeds and fruit in a single day?

I believe the same thing is going on in day 5 as well, but that text is worded differently, so it is easier to throw logic out the window and twist a different perspective out of it.

If you wanted to say anything about this in connection to creation it would be that God being outside of time could make trying to 'date' anything the completely wrong question to be asking or looking at. All it does is make the how of creation even more mysterious, even less obtainable for us to know anything about it.

Job 38:4
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
I assume we know nothing and can know nothing. Saying we understand it all because we made some calculations is absolute arrogance. God told us he created over 6 days, will you go up to him and say but Lord the rocks claimed 6 billion years! Will you set him straight?
Exodus 20

And God spoke all these words:

11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Yet you would rather accept rocks that some atheistic humanist aged than Gods own words.

Old earth creationists are not contradicting Gods own words. They are clarifying the intended meaning based on understanding that we didn’t have 3000 years ago.

 

[coffee4u]

Creation is part of the nature of God. You cannot separate the two just because you don’t like the implications.

The created is not God, God is the source of it and the sustainer of it but he is not part of it or held to its time frame.
Revelation 1:8
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
If you want to claim you can't separate God from his creation, that creation and God are one and the same then there would be no billions of years. The earth would be as timeless as God.

The first prophecy (which you correctly noted) is in response to the first sin. This treads into topics heavily debated in other threads. There is no scripture in the Bible that says that God chose to create man in a way that he would fail. Otherwise all of our actions would also be predetermined.

Foreknowing is not the same as predetermined. God sees all the days of our life, he sees every sin we will ever commit, everything that we will ever do including the day of our death, but he doesn't choose what you will do in each moment.

Psalm 139


1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

4 Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely
is an example of God's foreknowing not predetermination. He knew exactly what Adam would say and do before he did it.

And if Genesis 1 is not at least semi-metaphorical, how do you explain the creation of light on day 1, plants on day 3, but the sun and moon are not created until day 4.

If Genesis 1 is metaphorical as you claim then you should have no trouble showing how scripture upholds this view all the way through.

Why do you want to have an explanation for everything? It's very simple, I have faith in it because God clearly said this is what he did.

Going back to day 3, look at Genesis 1:11

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

Now in Genesis 1:12, the plan from the previous verse is put into action and is in the past tense:

“And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

When have you ever known grass, herbs and trees yielding seeds and fruit in a single day?

I believe the same thing is going on in day 5 as well, but that text is worded differently, so it is easier to throw logic out the window and twist a different perspective out of it.

Should we question Jesus turning water into wine? and say "When have you ever known water to change into wine so quickly?"
There are natural occurrences like the natural growth and fruiting of trees or the fermentation of grape juice into wine and then there are God driven miracles like instant trees and wine. One doesn't take away from the other, both can be true.

I assume you believe in the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus since you have Christian under your name. If you have no issue believing those miracles why do you take issue with the miracles of creation? Maybe because no scientist has come around declaring the resurrection metaphorical and shown evidence? Although I am sure if you asked any of these atheistic scientist about their thoughts on the resurrection of Christ they would class it in just that manner. What would you do then? Capulate to their secular evidence or stand for the miracle of the resurrection? I fail to see a difference here.

Old earth creationists are not contradicting Gods own words. They are clarifying the intended meaning based on understanding that we didn’t have 3000 years ago.

All of scripture hangs together, Genesis isn't some island off on its own. Scripture interprets scripture and the rest of scripture upholds a literal Adam and Eve, a literal sin that caused a literal death with the answer to all of this a very literal Christ who died a literal death. It ends with Jesus return, the resurrection of the body and death being destroyed and the new heavens and new earth made back to how it was, but this time incorruptible and without death. Evolution and millions of years fits in nowhere, not in Genesis or any other place in scripture.

Death isn't a part of life but is an enemy that came in due to man's sin. It wasn't simply happening for millions of years. It had a beginning which started with Adam and it will have an end.
1 Corinthians 15:26
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Jesus is called the second Adam because of what the first Adam did. Jesus didn't die due to what a metaphorical man did, he died because of what a real man did. It is all literal from start to finish.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

God tells us quite plainly in scripture that the world changed twice, he also told us that he created over 6 days, so how is that 'trickery'?

Some Christian churches interpret the Genesis account of the 6-day creation as a literal science textbook while other Christian churches (such as mine) allow for a figurative interpretation of the 6-day creation. In my opinion the "trickery" would be the creating of the the world in 6 days, but doing it in such a way that all the resulting observable evidence points to a time span of billions of years. If God really did create the world in 6 days, why did He leave behind physical evidence that is inconsistent with that short time span?

Do you think God owes us a long explanation, detailing all the changes?

God doesn't owe us anything. But He has given us something anyway. He has given us a world that appears to be 4.5 billion years old. He could have made the world look 6 days old, but He didn't. Why?

Did he explain contagions to the ancient Israelite's when he gave them hygiene and quarantine laws? No, he didn't explain himself at all. He wanted them to take his word on it and obey in trust.

He also gave Man the ability for rational thought that enabled Man to eventually figure out contagions.

Last week we have experience in....

When a bloody knife is found, no one has experience with how that particular knife might have been used in a murder. But because of evidence found today in examining the knife, we can infer things about what went on yesterday, even if there is no one left alive who actually experienced yesterday. That is why I say that the present is the key to the past. That principle holds for going one day into the past as well as going 4.5 billion years into the past.

That has nothing in common with something that no longer exists, created in a way nobody knows anything about.

Examining physical objects in the earth has a lot in common with processes that currently exist. We may not know for certain that the bloody knife was used in the murder, but we can assess that the probability is extremely high that it was if the DNA and fingerprints match. Similarly, we may not know for certain how the world was created, but we can assess that the probability is high that it occurred over a roughly 4.5 billion year time span.

 

[coffee4u]

Some Christian churches interpret the Genesis account of the 6-day creation as a literal science textbook while other Christian churches (such as mine) allow for a figurative interpretation of the 6-day creation.

I started off thinking similar thoughts to you when I was a new Christian but I was lucky enough to receive some sound Bible teaching from a very wise gentleman.

Genesis is neither figurative nor science. It's truth.

Science is man trying to figure out his environment through observation and experiment. He makes an hypotheses and sees how well the results match.

God does not dabble in science since he has no need to figure things out. God's knows everything that there is to know and he shares some of this with us in his word. His word is revealed truth not science.

In my opinion the "trickery" would be the creating of the the world in 6 days, but doing it in such a way that all the resulting observable evidence points to a time span of billions of years. If God really did create the world in 6 days, why did He leave behind physical evidence that is inconsistent with that short time span?

Except it doesn't.
If you want to look at scientific evidence which is based upon assumptions you can find evidence for both long and short ages and everything in-between. Erosion is one of them. You only have to change the assumptions these theories are based on to come up with vastly different answers.
Who told you it looked old in the first place?
I am quite sure you didn't wake up one morning look outside and say "This looks to be 4 billion years old" So it has never looked old to you, someone told you it was that old and you believed them.
I am still waiting for you to answer who told you it looked old.

God doesn't owe us anything. But He has given us something anyway. He has given us a world that appears to be 4.5 billion years old. He could have made the world look 6 days old, but He didn't. Why?

It doesn't appear to be any particular age.
Man has taken certain assumptions and built this theory upon them. These base assumptions were decided upon by people who did not witness them and they can't repeat them so there is no way to verify them, yet these assumptions are believed to be true. Using those base assumptions they carried out tests and calculations and came up with figures which are then claimed to be fact. This is what you are basing your 'the world looks old' upon, unproven, can never be proved base assumptions. You only have to change the base assumptions to change the final numbers. Numbers are easily manipulated.

He has also given us his Word and said
2 Timothy 3:16-17


16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

and

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart

He didn't say scripture is a good tool but needs the light of mans knowledge to be worth anything. Scripture alone is enough. If mans knowledge seems to contradict scripture it is mans knowledge base that need examining not scripture. This should be the clue to look at the base assumptions man has come up with and change those, not assume scripture means something it is clearly not saying. We are not delving into symbolism and prophesy here its very plain teaching. The ten Commandments is one of the plainest areas of scripture.
Do not murder, do not steal. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. Its easy enough for an 8 year old to be able to understand. This whole 'its your interpretation' claim is nonsense, what kind of 'interpretation' does such plain verses need? If someone does not understand what 'do not steal' means they may want to go back to kindergarten.

He also gave Man the ability for rational thought that enabled Man to eventually figure out contagions.

Yes he did and a smart man will make sure that the facts he ends up with match scripture. He won't take unproven assumptions and use them to make claims about something and then say his dramatic claims are proven by the unproven assumptions. Of course the dramatic claims match the assumptions, that is the whole point.

When a bloody knife is found, no one has experience with how that particular knife might have been used in a murder. But because of evidence found today in examining the knife, we can infer things about what went on yesterday, even if there is no one left alive who actually experienced yesterday. That is why I say that the present is the key to the past. That principle holds for going one day into the past as well as going 4.5 billion years into the past.

No this is completely different. You have actual experience of yesterday. We can do tests based on it and repeat them. If XY Z occurs to blood over 24 hours we can set this up again and watch for another 24 hours and see ZXY occurring again. We can set this up as many times as needed, same conditions, same time frames, all repeatable.

None of what you are claiming about the earth is repeatable science because the conditions and times can't be replicated.

Examining physical objects in the earth has a lot in common with processes that currently exist. We may not know for certain that the bloody knife was used in the murder, but we can assess that the probability is extremely high that it was if the DNA and fingerprints match. Similarly, we may not know for certain how the world was created, but we can assess that the probability is high that it occurred over a roughly 4.5 billion year time span.

Again this age is based around certain assumptions. It means you are trusting completely in the people who came up with these assumptions over God's plain word. Has it ever occurred to you the base assumptions are completely wrong? This is all that needs to be done, change the base assumptions and whatever calculations you get will change radically.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I started off thinking similar thoughts to you when I was a new Christian but I was lucky enough to receive some sound Bible teaching from a very wise gentleman.

Genesis is neither figurative nor science. It's truth.

It is not just me. The interpretation of Genesis as it relates to the age of the earth is far from settled among the various Christian churches and it has been thoroughly debated for centuries. I do not intend to weigh in on that question. I am explaining the limitations of science and the proper way in which it should be used. Science is not the search for truth. It is the search for what makes sense. If the truth does not make sense, then so be it. Science does not care. Science is only for determining what makes sense from what we can observe. I know there are people that attempt to use science to draw theological conclusions, and I do not defend them.

Science is man trying to figure out his environment through observation and experiment. He makes an hypotheses and sees how well the results match.

...Just to clarify, he sees how well the hypothesis matches the observations and experiments.

God does not dabble in science since he has no need to figure things out. God's knows everything that there is to know and he shares some of this with us in his word. His word is revealed truth not science.

Emphasis on "some."

Except it doesn't.
If you want to look at scientific evidence which is based upon assumptions you can find evidence for both long and short ages and everything in-between.

This is incorrect. There is no observational evidence for a 6000 year old earth.

Erosion is one of them. You only have to change the assumptions these theories are based on to come up with vastly different answers.

It does not matter what assumptions a theory is based on. The validity of a theory is confirmed by openly considering all the evidence - not just the evidence that agrees with the theory one wants to prove. If evidence does not support the assumption, that assumption should be discarded.

Who told you it looked old in the first place?

When I say earth "looked old" I am using a shorthand to describe a much more involved scientific process of reasoning. It is not simply forming an unproven assumption about what an old earth should look like and then seeing if it looks like that. It is combining all the observations that can relate to the progression of time and its effects on the environment and seeing what age of the earth is most consistent with those processes. One example is radio carbon dating, which has a range of up to 50,000 years. The fact that some objects register near 50,000 years old using this measurement is inconsistent with a 6000 year old earth. Granted it is a long way from a 4.5 billion year old earth, but this at least shows something questionable about the 6000 year hypothesis. But there are other processes that push the span out to the billions of years. As long as we reject the notion of a trickster God, we much accept the notion that the laws of physics have not been tinkered with by God just to fool us.

Man has taken certain assumptions and built this theory upon them.

I already addressed this question. Theories mean nothing until they are validated. Unproven assumption can play no role in that validation process.

He didn't say scripture is a good tool but needs the light of mans knowledge to be worth anything.

Scripture is a good tool for Man, but only if Man understands scripture.

Scripture alone is enough.

It also requires understanding.

If mans knowledge seems to contradict scripture it is mans knowledge base that need examining not scripture. This should be the clue to look at the base assumptions man has come up with and change those, not assume scripture means something it is clearly not saying. We are not delving into symbolism and prophesy here its very plain teaching. The ten Commandments is one of the plainest areas of scripture.

It looks like declaring that scripture is very plain is being used here in an attempt to promote just one interpretation and cut short any other interpretation.

Yes he did and a smart man will make sure that the facts he ends up with match scripture.

Almost. A man of faith will make sure a theory does not contradict scripture. But if scripture is unclear or silent on a question, there is nothing to check. That is the case with the age of the earth.

No this is completely different. You have actual experience of yesterday. We can do tests based on it and repeat them. If XY Z occurs to blood over 24 hours we can set this up again and watch for another 24 hours and see ZXY occurring again. We can set this up as many times as needed, same conditions, same time frames, all repeatable.

The one thing we cannot repeat is the actual murder itself. That only happened once. Just like creation only happened once. The processes involved in clotting blood and DNA can be observed over and over, but not this particular blood with this particular DNA. Similarly the process of radioactive decay in general can be tested over and over again, even while the application to rocks from ages ago can only be done once. I will also point out that the creation of the earth in Genesis was accompanied by the creation of the heavens, meaning the sun, the moon, and the stars. If the earth is young, then so are the stars, right? But we know the speed of light, and from that we know that stars did exist billions of years ago (or else they are a lot closer than they appear). One can talking about erosion and seafloor sediment all day, but what about the stars? How could they be 6000 years old when the light we see left the stars billions of years ago?

None of what you are claiming about the earth is repeatable science because the conditions and times can't be replicated.

Then nothing we say about the bloody knife is repeatable for the same reason, and therefore we can conclude nothing about a possible murder yesterday.

Again this age is based around certain assumptions.

Again, it is not.

 

[coffee4u]

It is not just me. The interpretation of Genesis as it relates to the age of the earth is far from settled among the various Christian churches and it has been thoroughly debated for centuries. I do not intend to weigh in on that question. I am explaining the limitations of science and the proper way in which it should be used. Science is not the search for truth. It is the search for what makes sense. If the truth does not make sense, then so be it. Science does not care. Science is only for determining what makes sense from what we can observe. I know there are people that attempt to use science to draw theological conclusions, and I do not defend them.

Of course its not just you, Christianity is in sad state of affairs, accepting sin left right and centre and providing what itching ears want to hear.
Health, wealth and prosperity, evolution, being gay is fine God loves you anyway.
No wonder there will be any faith left by the time Jesus returns, the church has got in bed with the world and is preaching Satan. laugh all you want you are deceived.

>>>Science is not the search for truth.

“Science is the search for the truth--it is not a game in which one tries to beat his opponent, to do harm to others. We need to have the spirit of science in international affairs, to make the conduct of international affairs the effort to find the right solution, the just solution of international problems, and not an effort by each nation to get the better of other nations, to do harm to them when it is possible. I believe in morality, in justice, in humanitarianism.”
― Linus Pauling, Linus Pauling on Peace: A Scientist Speaks Out on Humanism and World Survival

You may not think it is truth, which given your strongly held belief in evolution is kind of strange, to hold onto something as correct yet also claim it not to be the truth? Oxymoron if ever I saw one.
Is evolution true or not? If so then death has been going on for millions of years and you just denied much of scripture.

The solution to the worlds problems is not science it is Jesus.

...Just to clarify, he sees how well the hypothesis matches the observations and experiments.

Of course he does. It shows him how the world reacts now. The assumption here being how it reacts now is how it has always reacted, which is false.

Emphasis on "some."

Are you once again suggesting God should have told us all the details? If God had detailed how when he stretched the stars out that the light trailed behind them and how time did some kind of fold upon itself and it did this and that mathematically, would you be happy then, like Thomas? Because then God would have handed you some hard evidence on the age of the stars?

Faith is believing without seeing, without being handed all the details.
John 20:29
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I believe what God says as he said it.
And God spoke all these words:
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them
If the world says there is evidence that shows something different then it us who have misunderstood what we have seen, us who are missing big parts of the picture and that if we did have all the pieces then it would all make sense. I believe one day when we stand before God we will know all of this and it will all make sense.

This is incorrect. There is no observational evidence for a 6000 year old earth.

There is plenty of evidence showing a young earth if you wanted to go check it out, which you don't. Facts are based upon assumptions and those assumptions determine what the facts say. Change the base assumptions and you change the 'facts'.
I couldn't care so I'm not digging it up, my faith is based in scripture and in scripture alone.

It does not matter what assumptions a theory is based on. The validity of a theory is confirmed by openly considering all the evidence - not just the evidence that agrees with the theory one wants to prove. If evidence does not support the assumption, that assumption should be discarded.

The world as it was is no longer here. There is no evidence to be gathered from it, because it no longer exists. God calls himself the potter. If I shape a pitcher then reshape it into a platter the pitcher is no longer here to be looked at. It now looks and functions differently. If I expect the platter to hold wine like the pitcher did then I am going to be continually disappointed and come to the conclusion that this never held liquids because it shows different properties. The fact is that it did once hold liquids but now it doesn't. The world has changed and the present is not the key to the past.

When I say earth "looked old" I am using a shorthand to describe a much more involved scientific process of reasoning. It is not simply forming an unproven assumption about what an old earth should look like and then seeing if it looks like that. It is combining all the observations that can relate to the progression of time and its effects on the environment and seeing what age of the earth is most consistent with those processes.

Because you trust the scientist who said so. Would you have trusted Richard Dawkins to tell you about God? These are the people you are trusting.

One example is radio carbon dating, which has a range of up to 50,000 years. The fact that some objects register near 50,000 years old using this measurement is inconsistent with a 6000 year old earth.

Do you know all the assumptions that even radio carbon dating is based upon?
https://phys.org/news/2018-06-cornell-illuminates-inaccuracies-radiocarbon-dating.html
And this isn't even scientists from the creation side of the field.

Like I said before the final facts come from certain assumptions. All it takes for the facts to be completely wrong are for the assumptions a field has been built upon to be incorrect. Change the base assumptions you change the final facts.

Granted it is a long way from a 4.5 billion year old earth, but this at least shows something questionable about the 6000 year hypothesis. But there are other processes that push the span out to the billions of years. As long as we reject the notion of a trickster God, we much accept the notion that the laws of physics have not been tinkered with by God just to fool us.

Pitcher vs platter. It is not a trick it is us not having all the pieces of evidence.

I already addressed this question. Theories mean nothing until they are validated. Unproven assumption can play no role in that validation process.

You cannot validate what is not here to be validated.

Scripture is a good tool for Man, but only if Man understands scripture.

It also requires understanding.

So tell me how hard this is to understand.
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them

It looks like declaring that scripture is very plain is being used here in an attempt to promote just one interpretation and cut short any other interpretation.

So what is your interpretation of the Exodus 20:1?
How about Exodus 13 “You shall not murder.
or 14? You shall not steal.
We are not talking about the book of Revelations here. Most Sunday schools teach the Ten Commandments to children.

Almost. A man of faith will make sure a theory does not contradict scripture. But if scripture is unclear or silent on a question, there is nothing to check. That is the case with the age of the earth.

You don't even get it do you? Its not even about the age of the earth its about sin and death.
Scripture is not silent on death it clearly stats there was no death, that death came in via sin, that the wages of sin are death and that death will one day be gone as it was in the beginning. Evolution meanwhile views death as naturally occurring for millions of years, as death is simply a part of life. This is not what scripture teaches.

The age of the earth is built upon incorrect man made assumptions and that's a secondary issue. We are not here primarily to defend the age of the earth although that is part of it, we are here to defend the biblical stance on sin and death and the resurrection.

The one thing we cannot repeat is the actual murder itself. That only happened once. Just like creation only happened once. The processes involved in clotting blood and DNA can be observed over and over, but not this particular blood with this particular DNA. Similarly the process of radioactive decay in general can be tested over and over again, even while the application to rocks from ages ago can only be done once. I will also point out that the creation of the earth in Genesis was accompanied by the creation of the heavens, meaning the sun, the moon, and the stars. If the earth is young, then so are the stars, right? But we know the speed of light, and from that we know that stars did exist billions of years ago (or else they are a lot closer than they appear). One can talking about erosion and seafloor sediment all day, but what about the stars? How could they be 6000 years old when the light we see left the stars billions of years ago?

Like I said before this is the pitcher vs the platter.
When a murder is investigated they have evidence of the 'pitcher' so the investigation is based on evidence from the 'pitcher'. All the pieces come together to form a picture of the 'pitcher'. It can be trusted that the picture is fairly reliable and clear.

The process of dating the world is looking at evidence of the 'platter', investigating it while assuming it is looking at a 'pitcher' and coming up with a warped incorrect picture of the 'platter.'
If you don't understand what I mean yet then I can't help you.

Then nothing we say about the bloody knife is repeatable for the same reason, and therefore we can conclude nothing about a possible murder yesterday.

The bloody knife is very reliable because you can repeat the conditions.

Again, it is not.

Again it is. All dating methods are based upon certain assumptions. If you didn't have any assumptions you would never get anywhere.

For example physics assumes that the speed of light is a constant. This is one of the base assumptions. If you change that assumption and say the speed of light might not be constant you can come up with some very different answers.
Speed of Light May Not Be Constant, Physicists Say
I don't even have to look up creation science type sites to quickly get hits for that.[/QUOTE]

 

[SuperCow]

You may not think it is truth, which given your strongly held belief in evolution is kind of strange, to hold onto something as correct yet also claim it not to be the truth? Oxymoron if ever I saw one.
Is evolution true or not? If so then death has been going on for millions of years and you just denied much of scripture.

I didn't see anything in @LeafByNiggle 's posts that indicated that he believed in evolution. You're thinking of a theistic evolutionist, which is quite different from an old earth creationist. Theistic evolutionists believe that God used evolution to create the life on earth. Old earth creationists do not believe in evolution and think that life reproduces after its own kind, for eternity if possible. They agree with young earth creationists in this respect. The difference there is that they think that the time between "God said" and "God saw that it was good" is an undisclosed period of time and not a literal day.

Are you once again suggesting God should have told us all the details? If God had detailed how when he stretched the stars out that the light trailed behind them and how time did some kind of fold upon itself and it did this and that mathematically, would you be happy then, like Thomas? Because then God would have handed you some hard evidence on the age of the stars?

What God chooses to tell us is irrelevant. Our faith is not going to change if it can be proven that the earth goes back 6 days, 6000 years or 6 billion years before Adam. We just think that it is unreasonable to suggest that God is putting a purposeful stumbling block in front of the unbeliever, especially since every other Biblical event has a potentially reasonable interpretation from the archaeological record. (Even if it is a minority position)

Faith is believing without seeing, without being handed all the details.

John 20:29
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Again, this is not about faith. We all believed in God long before we took it upon ourselves to attempt to understand history and creation. The debate is not about "IF", it is about "HOW"? And your particular quote in context is about believing in the resurrection, not in the understanding of Genesis.

I believe one day when we stand before God we will know all of this and it will all make sense.

I agree with this, though I kind of think that even if we are righteous in his eyes, we will still be surprised at how many things we got wrong.

There is plenty of evidence showing a young earth if you wanted to go check it out, which you don't. Facts are based upon assumptions and those assumptions determine what the facts say. Change the base assumptions and you change the 'facts'.
I couldn't care so I'm not digging it up, my faith is based in scripture and in scripture alone.

If we hadn't already checked these things out, we wouldn't be here arguing about it. (Though I can't speak for LeafByNiggle)

The world as it was is no longer here. There is no evidence to be gathered from it, because it no longer exists.

The evidence is there. If it were not, then the evidence you say we should check out showing a young earth would not exist either. You can't logically have it both ways.

Because you trust the scientist who said so. Would you have trusted Richard Dawkins to tell you about God? These are the people you are trusting.

No, we are not. I don't consider Richard Dawkins to be a scientist. At best he is a philosopher. And Charles Darwin was a theorist. He did not have the technology to test any of his ideas scientifically.

Do you know all the assumptions that even radio carbon dating is based upon?
https://phys.org/news/2018-06-cornell-illuminates-inaccuracies-radiocarbon-dating.html
And this isn't even scientists from the creation side of the field.

This is true, but it took scientific research to find these inaccuracies.

So tell me how hard this is to understand.
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them
So what is your interpretation of the Exodus 20:11?

It's easy to understand. God (through Moses) used the periods of the creation account to relate it to the sabbath to give Israel a spiritual motivation to observing the sabbath. (ie. Even God observed a sabbath period.) Keep in mind this also extrapolated into sabbath years, not just sabbath days (for agricultural purposes) and for sabbaths of sabbaths (49th and 50th year for jubilees).

God rested from working on the entire universe for only one day, but the land must rest for an entire year? What has God been doing since? Did he start creating again? Or did he rest for some time afterward? Is he still resting? (As a few denominations believe)

You don't even get it do you? Its not even about the age of the earth its about sin and death.
Scripture is not silent on death it clearly stats there was no death, that death came in via sin, that the wages of sin are death and that death will one day be gone as it was in the beginning. Evolution meanwhile views death as naturally occurring for millions of years, as death is simply a part of life. This is not what scripture teaches.

Actually, all those scriptures you speak of relate to humans. There is nothing stating one way or the other whether animals would also be immortal. There are some that speak of animals getting along with each other that would normally be predator/prey relationships, but nothing about lifespan.

The age of the earth is built upon incorrect man made assumptions and that's a secondary issue. We are not here primarily to defend the age of the earth although that is part of it, we are here to defend the biblical stance on sin and death and the resurrection.

Scientific assumptions can be wrong. (There is a galaxy that has been catalogued by different sources as being either 23 million light years away or 78 million light years away. A huge difference.) There is no scientific assumption that can bring creation to only 6 days. And you can argue strictly from the Bible against a young earth without any scientific knowledge at all.

For example physics assumes that the speed of light is a constant. This is one of the base assumptions. If you change that assumption and say the speed of light might not be constant you can come up with some very different answers.
Speed of Light May Not Be Constant, Physicists Say
I don't even have to look up creation science type sites to quickly get hits for that.

The speed of light changes in different mediums (vacuum vs water vs glass, etc.) and is affected by gravity. I like the theory that the creative days can be interpreted with relativity, so that God's frame of reference is 6 day time frames, but this would still point to 4 billion years for the human frame of reference.

 

[Job 33:6]

Just a quick observation, glass and water bend light, but they do not slow it down^

 

[LeafByNiggle]

For example physics assumes that the speed of light is a constant. This is one of the base assumptions. If you change that assumption and say the speed of light might not be constant you can come up with some very different answers.

Yes, I stated a long time ago that science assumes the laws of physics are constant throughout time and space, for otherwise we would not be able to predict anything, like the fact that come next July, it will be warm in Minnesota. I said it was an assumption - a postulate - and not something that could be proven. But without it there is no science at all. And to return to the bloody knife issue, without the assumption that physics behaves the same to this knife as it does to that knife, there is no way to convict the murderer who used that knife. It appears your acceptance of science is selective. You accept the science of forensics in homicide investigations, but you do not accept the science of the age of the stars whose light has traveled for billions of years to reach our eyes. It is the same science.

 

[bekkilyn]

Perhaps the earth is both young and old at once and no one but God is seeing the entire elephant. God's time may not be linear.

 

[SuperCow]

Just a quick observation, glass and water bend light, but they do not slow it down^

Through other transparent or translucent materials light travels slower. Apparently the atoms in the medium (or more specifically the particles inside the atom) affect the light at the subatomic level. The link below calculates the speed of light through different mediums.

Molecular Expressions Microscopy Primer: Physics of Light and Color - Speed of Light in Transparent Materials: Interactive Tutorial

I do not know how or if this changes the calculations of special or general relativity. It is my understanding that Einstein's calculations are based on light speed in a vacuum, which is why the speed is always reported that way.

 

[Platte]

The age of the earth is a historical question not a scientific one.

 

[Job 33:6]

Through other transparent or translucent materials light travels slower. Apparently the atoms in the medium (or more specifically the particles inside the atom) affect the light at the subatomic level. The link below calculates the speed of light through different mediums.

Molecular Expressions Microscopy Primer: Physics of Light and Color - Speed of Light in Transparent Materials: Interactive Tutorial

I do not know how or if this changes the calculations of special or general relativity. It is my understanding that Einstein's calculations are based on light speed in a vacuum, which is why the speed is always reported that way.

Oh I see. I stand corrected! Thank you.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Science has a way of demanding to be the final authority, but then refusing criticism when they are wrong.

 

[JulieB67]

We can only conclude that all of these formations we made over a very long period of time, long before Adam and Eve were made in the Garden of Eden.

Agreed!

 

[coffee4u]

Perhaps the earth is both young and old at once and no one but God is seeing the entire elephant. God's time may not be linear.

I've often said that age may be the wrong question since God is outside of time and the materials he created may have also been outside of time.
This does not take away from the creation week though.

 

[coffee4u]

Agreed!

I think you mean, I and me not we. Since others like myself patently do not agree, do not include us in this all encompassing 'we' There is no 'we'.

Also I added the quote by SavedByGrace3 so this is clearer, but it isn't showing up on my browser for some reason.

 

[JulieB67]

I think you mean, I and me not we. Since others like myself patently do not agree, do not include us in this all encompassing 'we' There is no 'we'.

I didn't mention anything about "we" so sorry if my post wasn't clear. I just said "agreed" and since that was my post I thought it was clear it was just meant from me. But I guess you're going with their "we" so I can see what you mean, sorry.