How Old is the Earth?

[Tinker Grey]

And why would anyone care. Can we not entertain the concept that Adam is a literary character rather than a historical person?

Indeed. If the author of the book of Genesis gave any thought to the age of the earth, he/she/it could have written Genesis 51:1 "Oh, and by the way, at the time of this writing, lo the 7th year of the reign of Ahmenhotep I, the world is exactly 3757 years old."

 

[AV1611VET]

Indeed. If the author of the book of Genesis gave any thought to the age of the earth, he/she/it could have written Genesis 51:1 "Oh, and by the way, at the time of this writing, lo the 7th year of the reign of Ahmenhotep I, the world is exactly 3757 years old."

And if it did, would that be enough to convince the scientific naysayers that their science is wrong?

 

[BNR32FAN]

And why would anyone care. Can we not entertain the concept that Adam is a literary character rather than a historical person?

Sure if you want to ignore scripture. So we inherited our sinful nature and death came to all men from a fictional character? All men from every nation came from a fictional character and we even have an entire genealogy beginning with a fictional character spanning 4000 years all the way to Christ. If that’s how we should view the story of Adam then why believe anything written in the Bible?

 

[BNR32FAN]

Indeed. If the author of the book of Genesis gave any thought to the age of the earth, he/she/it could have written Genesis 51:1 "Oh, and by the way, at the time of this writing, lo the 7th year of the reign of Ahmenhotep I, the world is exactly 3757 years old."

Instead He chose to give us an exact number starting from the sixth day all the way to Jesus whom the entire world has based their calendar on.

 

[Astrid]

Human Beings did that calculation, not God. Regardless, it's not a question that would be asked by God.

A genealogy of unknown provenance is a
very thin strand to hold up a claim that
all the sciences are fundamentaltally flawed
and profoundly in error.

Sure if you want to ignore scripture. So we inherited our sinful nature and death came to all men from a fictional character? All men from every nation came from a fictional character and we even have an entire genealogy beginning with a fictional character spanning 4000 years all the way to Christ. If that’s how we should view the story of Adam then why believe anything written in the Bible?

You by grace have the the one True understanding
of said book?

Everyone what dont toe your chosen line is
ignoring ( all of) scripture ?

 

[AV1611VET]

A genealogy of unknown provenance is a very thin strand ...

And yet that genealogy is called upon time and time again to demonstrate to highly educated people why we believe what we believe.

Do you think academia cares as much about the genealogies in the book of Mormon? the Bhagavad Gita? or Mein Kampf?

Yet academia will crawl all over the genealogies of Matthew and Luke with a fine toothed microscope to find something wrong.

The Bible is a unique message to us from the Spiritual world, and It makes even unbelievers traipse out in the deserts of our planet looking for data they say shouldn't exist.

Every jot & tittle of the Bible is under scrutiny by our finest and most educated unbelievers.

And it must hurt some people tremendously that their sacred writings don't get equal airtime.

 

[Astrophile]

The cosmic microwave background is everywhere there's nothing about it that indicates a time frame. The hypothesis is that it formed because of a theory that there was a big bang and that hasn't been proven. It's one of a few theories of the beginning of the universe. Man has not gazed that far back yet.

The age of the universe can be calculated from the Hubble constant (H), that is, the ratio between the recession speed of a galaxy, quasar, etc. and its distance. The value of the Hubble constant is about 69.8 km/s/megaparsec. The ratio of the speed of light (c) to H is about 4300 parsecs, corresponding to an age of 14.0 billion years.

Also, the Big Bang cosmology predicts both the existence and the non-uniformity of the cosmic microwave background; the observed non-uniformity (measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe - WMAP - and the ESA Planck satellite) corresponds to an age of 13.8 billion years, in good agreement with the age derived from the Hubble constant.

The time between the origin of the universe and the recombination epoch (about 380,000 years) is calculated from the observed value of the Hubble constant.

Although the Big Bang cosmology has not been proved (no scientific theory can ever be proved, since it is always possible that new observations will disprove it), it explains the observations better than any alternative hypothesis so far proposed. If you can put forward a different hypothesis and can show that it explains the facts better than the Big Bang cosmology, you will become famous overnight.

 

[AV1611VET]

Everyone what don't toe your chosen line is ignoring (all of) scripture?

Nobody -- and I mean NOBODY -- with a college degree ignores Scripture.

They may claim they do, but ask them who Moses is, and they know exactly who you're referring to.

And even the most staunch atheists and Bible unbelievers and shunners probably know 4 out of the 10 plagues of Egypt, can name 4 out of the 12 disciples of Jesus, can name about 25 out of the 66 books of the Bible, describe the crossing of the Red Sea, the battle of Jericho, point to "The Promised Land" on a map, and on and on and on.

Mention Biafra, and most scientists will have to google it to know what you're talking about.

Mention Canaan though, and 9 out of 10 know exactly what you're talking about.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I agree the CMBR is the oldest observed. Since nothing has been observed beyond the CMB wouldn't 13.7 billion be a theory.

No, that's not how this works. 13.7 billion years is one of the parameters in the model that fits the observational data.

Unless there's something I haven't read on that proves the BB was around 380 million years before the recombination and the beginning of the surface of the last scattering i assume.

The time from BB to recombination comes from that same model. (And it's 380 thousand years, not million).

Now what's this got to do with the age of the Earth?

 

[BeyondET]

No, that's not how this works. 13.7 billion years is one of the parameters in the model that fits the observational data.

The time from BB to recombination comes from that same model. (And it's 380 thousand years, not million).

Now what's this got to do with the age of the Earth?

The observational data is only 5% of the whole universe. The other 95% of the universe, dark energy and dark matter and where it came from and how old 95% of universe is, is still unknown.

Those are more than likely older than the normal matter which is 13.7 billion

 

[BeyondET]

The age of the Earth can be calculated from the Hubble constant (H), that is, the ratio between the recession speed of a galaxy, quasar, etc. and its distance. The value of the Hubble constant is about 69.8 km/s/megaparsec. The ratio of the speed of light (c) to H is about 4300 parsecs, corresponding to an age of 14.0 billion years.

Also, the Big Bang cosmology predicts both the existence and the non-uniformity of the cosmic microwave background; the observed non-uniformity (measured by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe - WMAP - and the ESA Planck satellite) corresponds to an age of 13.8 billion years, in good agreement with the age derived from the Hubble constant.

The time between the origin of the universe and the recombination epoch (about 380,000 years) is calculated from the observed value of the Hubble constant.

Although the Big Bang cosmology has not been proved (no scientific theory can ever be proved, since it is always possible that new observations will disprove it), it explains the observations better than any alternative hypothesis so far proposed. If you can put forward a different hypothesis and can show that it explains the facts better than the Big Bang cosmology, you will become famous overnight.

5% of it, the other 95% of the universe is unknown, its age and where dark energy and matter came from.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Sure if you want to ignore scripture. So we inherited our sinful nature and death came to all men from a fictional character? All men from every nation came from a fictional character and we even have an entire genealogy beginning with a fictional character spanning 4000 years all the way to Christ. If that’s how we should view the story of Adam then why believe anything written in the Bible?

Was there a Captain Ahab? Was there a whale they called Moby Dick? It doesn't really matter des it? There is still truth to be learned about friendship, duty, death, obsession, courage, etc. The authors of Genesis 1 & 2 were inspired to reflect on creation and in their own way made the points that creation is intentional, good, orderly and the work of a divine force beyond our imagining. I do not need to believe creation was 6,000 years ago.

 

[Hans Blaster]

And yet that genealogy is called upon time and time again to demonstrate to highly educated people why we believe what we believe.

Only for the genealogy-based factions of Christianity (like yours it would seem). The rest of Christendom doesn't worry about such things. (I was 20 or so years in before I even found out your kind existed.)

Do you think academia cares as much about the genealogies in the book of Mormon? the Bhagavad Gita? or Mein Kampf?

Is there anything academia would really care about the ones in your book. I don't think they do.

Yet academia will crawl all over the genealogies of Matthew and Luke with a fine toothed microscope to find something wrong.

No such microscope is needed. (with a microscope, or "fine-toothed comb", microscopes do not have combs)

One not need any fancy tools to find the problems in the genealogies in the gospels, just a pencil and a pad of lined paper to notice they don't match. Any young Christian can do it (and they should).

The Bible is a unique message to us from the Spiritual world, and It makes even unbelievers traipse out in the deserts of our planet looking for data they say shouldn't exist.

I see no evidence of the spiritual world and all such claimed text are unique unto themselves.

Every jot & tittle of the Bible is under scrutiny by our finest and most educated unbelievers.

I still haven't read the whole thing so I haven't gotten to the book of Jots & Tiitles.

And it must hurt some people tremendously that their sacred writings don't get equal airtime.

I don't have sacred writings so I don't really care.

 

[Hans Blaster]

The observational data is only 5% of the whole universe. The other 95% of the universe, dark energy and dark matter and where it came from and how old 95% of universe is, is still unknown.

The whole universe comes together at once. That "other 95%" is detected with the same telescopes as the visible 5%. Dark matter almost certainly condensed from the hot plasma of the BB, we just don't know what particle(s) it is. The leading candidate for dark energy is some sort of vacuum energy of empty space, so it just comes into existence continuously as space expands.

Those are more than likely older than the normal matter which is 13.7 billion

An assertion without any evidence backing it.

 

[BeyondET]

The whole universe comes together at once. That "other 95%" is detected with the same telescopes as the visible 5%. Dark matter almost certainly condensed from the hot plasma of the BB, we just don't know what particle(s) it is. The leading candidate for dark energy is some sort of vacuum energy of empty space, so it just comes into existence continuously as space expands.

An assertion without any evidence backing it.

That is a complete hypothesis, the only thing science knows about dark energy or dark matter is it reacts with normal matter.

Dark matter almost certainly condensed from the hot plasma is not known at all.

A leading candidate for dark energy is it was before the big bang.

 

[AV1611VET]

And yet that genealogy is called upon time and time again to demonstrate to highly educated people why we believe what we believe.

Only for the genealogy-based factions of Christianity (like yours it would seem). The rest of Christendom doesn't worry about such things.

Ya -- they don't worry about it, then get pwned by highly educated people challenging them to explain why they believe what they believe.

(I was 20 or so years in before I even found out your kind existed.)

Some people have a sheltered past.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Ya -- they don't worry about it, then get pwned by highly educated people challenging them to explain why they believe what they believe.

I have no idea who "they are" any more or what this has to do with the price of bread or the age of the Earth.

Some people have a sheltered past.

We had both kinds -- Lutherans and Catholics. I think there might have been a few exotics like "Methodists" (who have a method? Who knows) and "Presbyterians" (must be some sort of odd sect with such an odd name). Religion bored me. Why should I have spent any time thinking about other religions or even caring which ones there were. I had better things to do.

 

[Hans Blaster]

That is a complete hypothesis, the only thing science knows about dark energy or dark matter is it reacts with normal matter.

This is literally backward. We have no evidence of either dark matter or dark energy interacting with normal matter. We only have evidence of them changing the curvature of spacetime and the impact of that on the motion of astronomical objects.

Dark matter almost certainly condensed from the hot plasma is not known at all.

Since dark matter is most likely a particle, such a particle would be massive and stable and DM particles (whatever their quantum properties) would have popped into existence when the energy density of space was high enough to happen spontaneously. The further back in time in the BB model, the higher the energy density. Eventually *any* particle that is possible to form will if you go back far enough.

A leading candidate for dark energy is it was before the big bang.

I thought I'd heard of most dark energy candidates and I've never heard of that one before. I think you need to cite your claim.

 

[AV1611VET]

Religion bored me. Why should I have spent any time thinking about other religions or even caring which ones there were. I had better things to do.

Stunted your growth, didn't it?

So for twenty years you didn't know "my kind" existed?

Well ... now you do.

And it appears you don't know what to make of us.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Stunted your growth, didn't it?

Nope. Kept me from wasting my time worrying about other people's religions. Wasn't that into mine, so why would care about yours.

So for twenty years you didn't know "my kind" existed?

Bliss.

Well ... now you do.

All good things come to an end.

And it appears you don't know what to make of us.

Ignore buttons exist for a reason.