How old is the universe?

[ThePhoenix]

Ok...G-D said it was 6 days...then it was 6 days. Jesus didnt possiably die on the cross...He died on the cross. King David didnt possiably exsist or not exsist at all...HE EXSISTED. If you take one part of the Bible as truth then you should take the whole thing. DOnt twist the truth to try to make sense out of it. How can we understand G-D?

So does this verse in the Song Of Solomon talk about goat herding?

If you do not know, most beautiful of women,
follow the tracks of the sheep
and graze your young goats
by the tents of the shepherds.

How about the parables of Jesus, are those literal?

 

[Harpazo]

@ThePhoenix - there's a difference between a frank reading of the text and a wooden literal one. An important part of Biblical hermeneutics is identifying when the text is employing metaphor or imagery and when the text is meant to be understood at face value. Any one who reads Song of Solomon immediately understands that Solomon is using imagery and metaphor to paint a picture. Likewise, when Jesus says that He is the door we do not read it in a wooden literal sense and say that He has a doorknob and hinges.

@lucaspa
re: Speed of light - The constancy of the speed of light is far from a closed book in the halls of science. Starting with the highly-respected Raymond Birge in the first part of the 20th century, C.L. Strong in the late '70s, Barry Setterfield and Trevor Norman in the '80s, V.S. Troitskii (who postulated that the speed of light may have originally been 10^10 times faster) also in the late '80s, William Tifft (studying redshift in distant galaxies), Guthrie and Napier, and a plethora of physicists and cosmologists since then have asserted that the data they are collecting indicates that the speed of light is indeed slowing down.
I'm not disputing your statement regarding the release of radioactive energy (mainly b/c I haven't yet dived into the mountain of scientific literature regarding the ramifications of a variable speed of light -- maybe after finals...), however these scientists are reporting that the data is showing exactly what you're denying: that the velocity of light is quantifiably (and possibly predictably) decreasing.

----
Ok, that said, my own $0.05 about Creation are this:
I take the Bible seriously. I do not buy into the post-modern mythologizing of the first three chapters of Genesis; I think that if you say that Adam and Eve were just symbols or fictional characters invented to populate the Hebrew creation account you open up all of Scripture to fiction and myth.

A sharp skeptic will argue (as s/he should): "Well, since all that Adam and Eve stuff is made up, what's to say that all that Jesus stuff wasn't made up too? IF Jesus even existed at all, he was probably just another wise human teacher who never performed miracles or raised from the dead to pay for humanity's sins. In fact, since the whole Garden thing is made up -- and that's where sin first appears -- there must not be any sin, which means I don't need your make-believe Christ! So your whole religion is a bunch of phony, bullsh*t hocus pocus!" (from an actual conversation I overheard)

If Christians are to win non-believers over to Christ, then they must be, as Peter said, "always prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have" (1Pet 3:15). If Christians start compromising the Scriptures (which have endured two millennia of criticism, attack, rejection, and dissection) to fit the findings of science (which is perpetually changing) then they put the Bible's authority and relevance to the non-Christian skeptic's life at the whim of the next scientific discovery. When the scientific status quo is thrown out by the new discovery, so then is (some of if not all) the Bible's relevance to the non-believer.

 

[rudy3107]

i dunno, but at least more older than me.

 

[artybloke]

A sharp skeptic will argue (as s/he should): "Well, since all that Adam and Eve stuff is made up, what's to say that all that Jesus stuff wasn't made up too?

False analogy. A bit like saying, well, if Dicken's Bleak House is fictional, then who's to say that Simon Schama's History of the British Isles isn't fictional. Any piece of literature has to be assessed according to its own genre. The Bible contains writings in various genre; including myth and legend and including history. Just because the book of Genesis is myth doesn't stop the Gospel of Luke, say, from being history.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

If Christians are to win non-believers over to Christ, then they must be, as Peter said, "always prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have" (1Pet 3:15). If Christians start compromising the Scriptures (which have endured two millennia of criticism, attack, rejection, and dissection) to fit the findings of science (which is perpetually changing) then they put the Bible's authority and relevance to the non-Christian skeptic's life at the whim of the next scientific discovery. When the scientific status quo is thrown out by the new discovery, so then is (some of if not all) the Bible's relevance to the non-believer.

Au Contraire.

If we try to win people by telling them they have to believe what they know isn't true, they will disappear quicker than snow off a spring roof. I would never, ever have become a Christian if I'd thought for a moment it involved rejecting what I knew of science and accepting a mythological account of origins as historical truth. A clearer way of saying "Christianity is a load of ********" you couldn't wish for.

 

[TasManOfGod]

I was reading the pole questions and the thought "manipulative wording" popped into my head. Could anybody else understand why that should happen?

 

[ThePhoenix]

Because, I don't know, it was manipulative wording perhaps?

 

[gluadys]

Ok, that said, my own $0.05 about Creation are this:
I take the Bible seriously. I do not buy into the post-modern mythologizing of the first three chapters of Genesis; I think that if you say that Adam and Eve were just symbols or fictional characters invented to populate the Hebrew creation account you open up all of Scripture to fiction and myth.

As someone already noted, that is not the case. The bible contains many different genres including some factual history. But why does anything that is not obviously factual history, such as Gen. 1-11 have to be treated as if it were? What is so terrible about having fiction and myth in the bible? After all, its not as if fiction and myth were the same thing as deceit and falsehood.

If Christians are to win non-believers over to Christ, then they must be, as Peter said, "always prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have" (1Pet 3:15). If Christians start compromising the Scriptures (which have endured two millennia of criticism, attack, rejection, and dissection) to fit the findings of science (which is perpetually changing) then they put the Bible's authority and relevance to the non-Christian skeptic's life at the whim of the next scientific discovery. When the scientific status quo is thrown out by the new discovery, so then is (some of if not all) the Bible's relevance to the non-believer.

When it comes to science, Christians have been adapting scripture to scientific knowledge since at least the 4th century when they accomodated the flat-earth cosmology found in scripture to the cosmos of spheres within spheres described by Ptolemy. It's an old Christian tradition.

 

[TasManOfGod]

oops

 

[JVD]

I'm not a scientist or even trained in science, but I've thought about this a lot. I generally want to believe most of the young earth ideas, but also see the merit in the old universe. Obviously unless light traveled at different speeds 6000 years ago, or the universe is older than 6000 years.

Or God created the universe to look old. In other words, all the different things that we can measure today that would require an old earth worked differently 6000 years ago. Then you have to ask...why would he do that?

So you either have to believe the universe is old, or that God is trying to trick us into thinking that it is old. I have to go with the former.

 

[Harpazo]

False analogy. A bit like saying, well, if Dicken's Bleak House is fictional, then who's to say that Simon Schama's History of the British Isles isn't fictional. Any piece of literature has to be assessed according to its own genre. The Bible contains writings in various genre; including myth and legend and including history. Just because the book of Genesis is myth doesn't stop the Gospel of Luke, say, from being history.

It's not the entire book that loses credibility, just the parts that don't square with contemporary scientific understanding -- like dead people coming back to life. Modern science also tells us that the surface tension of (liquid) water is nowhere near strong enough to support the force of an adult human walking on it, and modern medicine tells us that smearing spit-mud on the eyes of a congenitally-blind person will never make him see or that just talking to a paralytic will heal his legs. Does that mean that the Gospels are myth too? Because the discussion was over the Creation and Eden accounts (Genesis 1-3), and you lumped the other forty-some chapters in Genesis in too, declaring the entire book of Genesis (including all that insignificant stuff about Abraham and Isaac and all that Covenant business )

My point is (and was) that if you start saying that a particular account in the Bible is not historically accurate because it contains elements that are not naturally possible (ie., super-natural) in our experience, then you have to also (for the sake of consistency) say that anywhere else in the Bible where there is a miraculous or "super"-natural event (like the Resurrection of Christ) recorded it's really just a myth. And if you then label the entire book to be a myth (b/c of the one event), how much of the Bible is left that is historically accurate? and how much is a colorful yarn spun around a little karygma of historical truth by a group of pre-modern Jews and Greeks?

As someone already noted, that is not the case. The bible contains many different genres including some factual history. But why does anything that is not obviously factual history, such as Gen. 1-11 have to be treated as if it were? What is so terrible about having fiction and myth in the bible? After all, its not as if fiction and myth were the same thing as deceit and falsehood.

I'm not disputing that the Bible contains many different literary genres.

But why does anything that is not obviously factual history, such as Gen. 1-11 have to be treated as if it were?

I disagree that it's obviously not factual history. Granted, I've never chatted with a serpent nor clothed myself with light, so I can't offer any scientific or naturalistic evidence for its factuality -- but neither can anyone else. What I can (and will) say is that those of us living on this side of the Fall, the Flood, and the Resurrection have no clue what human life, the earth, reality was like back in the Garden of Eden. Heck, we don't even know what the pre-flood world looked like, let alone what it was like in the Garden [you can not prove to me that Adam and Eve even shared the same dimensionality (10) that we do].

Before y'all catagorize me as a Young Earth Creationist or an unthinking fundamentalist bible thumper (of which I am neither), understand that I'm not saying that we try to win people to Christ by telling them that everything they supposedly know from science is false (Karl-Liberal Backslider) or that science is useless. My personal position is that science (objective science, not neo-Darwinism -- which is materialistic naturalism covered by the skin of Darwinian evolution) asserts the historical accuracy of the Bible and bolsters the credibility of its message. I think that it is myopic to say that "science" disproves the Creation account, because no branch of science -- not biology, not chemistry, not physics (in all its forms), not archeology, nor any others -- conclusively disprove the Biblical account.

Remember, historical criticism of a document says that the benefit of the doubt lies with the document purporting to be historically accurate; the burden lies on the critic to prove that it is not so. It all turns on a proper reading of the text (since I can't post links yet, check out the writings of J.W. Montgomery for some legal guidelines for documentary hermeneutics)

Lastly, I am neither young earth or old earth but I AM a Creationist. I am a pre-med student (I take the MCATs saturday ), and I have a great interest in all of the sciences -- especially the "newer" ones like the information sciences, biochemistry, and hyperdimensional physics (all of which, interestingly enough, have yielded more challenges than support to macroevolutionary theory). And let me reiterate (or iterate if I haven't said it before ) that I in no way think that anyone's salvation is contingent upon their reading of Genesis 1-3 -- what is important is one's acceptance of, belief in, and relationship with Christ Jesus.

 

[gluadys]

My point is (and was) that if you start saying that a particular account in the Bible is not historically accurate because it contains elements that are not naturally possible (ie., super-natural) in our experience, then you have to also (for the sake of consistency) say that anywhere else in the Bible where there is a miraculous or "super"-natural event (like the Resurrection of Christ) recorded it's really just a myth.

Not necessarily. What you can say about some miraculous events is that we don't have a scientific explanation for them. That does not necessarily mean they never happened. For example, some people experience unexplained spontaneous remissions of cancerous tumours. If people experience unexplained cures today, no reason they may not have experienced them in the past as well.

Now, some people are more comfortable appealing to the miraculous than others, so it is natural that some people will be more accepting of an account of a person walking on water than others. We can certainly say that this is not a natural possibility. And we have only one recorded instance of such an event. It cannot be repeated, observed again,subjected to any of the tests scientists use to establish that it is a possible event. That does not mean it is necessarily impossible either.

And if you then label the entire book to be a myth (b/c of the one event), how much of the Bible is left that is historically accurate? and how much is a colorful yarn spun around a little karygma of historical truth by a group of pre-modern Jews and Greeks?

What does it matter? Is it possible to set a "myth" limit beyond which we can say the bible has no further value? Do we throw the bible out if it contains 20% myth or not until we ascertain that it contains 60% myth?

Again I ask, what is wrong with mythical content? Why is there a prejudice against the value of myth? Why would a bible that contains 90% myth have any less value than one that contains 30% myth.

I disagree that it's obviously not factual history.

I disagree with that statement too. What I said is that it is not obviously factual history.

Granted, I've never chatted with a serpent nor clothed myself with light, so I can't offer any scientific or naturalistic evidence for its factuality -- but neither can anyone else. What I can (and will) say is that those of us living on this side of the Fall, the Flood, and the Resurrection have no clue what human life, the earth, reality was like back in the Garden of Eden.

I disagree. I think the textual evidence of scripture is sufficient to establish that the biblical writers did not pre-suppose a pre-Fall, pre-Flood environment much different than what we see today. Indications of post-Resurrection life are more conflicting. Some appear to be a continuation of life on earth, with violence, sickness, sorrowand evil removed. Others speak in more radical terms of spiritual bodies adapted to an angelic environment.

Heck, we don't even know what the pre-flood world looked like, let alone what it was like in the Garden [you can not prove to me that Adam and Eve even shared the same dimensionality (10) that we do].

No, but you have no scriptural support for such a conjecture either. I take it as a good rule that where scripture is silent, it is best not to try and force it to speak.

Before y'all catagorize me as a Young Earth Creationist or an unthinking fundamentalist bible thumper (of which I am neither), understand that I'm not saying that we try to win people to Christ by telling them that everything they supposedly know from science is false (Karl-Liberal Backslider) or that science is useless. My personal position is that science (objective science, not neo-Darwinism -- which is materialistic naturalism covered by the skin of Darwinian evolution) asserts the historical accuracy of the Bible and bolsters the credibility of its message. I think that it is myopic to say that "science" disproves the Creation account, because no branch of science -- not biology, not chemistry, not physics (in all its forms), not archeology, nor any others -- conclusively disprove the Biblical account.

You cannot separate evolution out from the rest of science. Evolution is a scientific theory supported by lines of evidence from many different scientific disciplines. If you try to separate it out, you do not cast doubt only on evolution, but on much of what you call "objective science" as well.

Remember, historical criticism of a document says that the benefit of the doubt lies with the document purporting to be historically accurate; the burden lies on the critic to prove that it is not so. It all turns on a proper reading of the text (since I can't post links yet, check out the writings of J.W. Montgomery for some legal guidelines for documentary hermeneutics)

The bible, however, does not purport to be historically accurate in all respects. Much of it makes no such claim. Remember, the bible is a collection of many documents of many sorts. Where it does make a claim to historical accuracy, that can be checked out. But verifying that claim does not mean that one has verified the historical authenticity of anything but that one claim. By the same token, if that one claim to historical accuracy is falsified, the falsification applies only to that one claim, not to the bible in its entirety.

Lastly, I am neither young earth or old earth but I AM a Creationist. I am a pre-med student (I take the MCATs saturday ), and I have a great interest in all of the sciences -- especially the "newer" ones like the information sciences, biochemistry, and hyperdimensional physics (all of which, interestingly enough, have yielded more challenges than support to macroevolutionary theory). And let me reiterate (or iterate if I haven't said it before ) that I in no way think that anyone's salvation is contingent upon their reading of Genesis 1-3 -- what is important is one's acceptance of, belief in, and relationship with Christ Jesus.

More likely these new sciences only pose a problem for creationist pseudo-versions of evolution, not for the actual scientific theory. I don't see why physics would pose a problem for evolution at all, and I have not heard of anything in information theory or biochemistry that does so.

 

[ThePhoenix]

[you can not prove to me that Adam and Eve even shared the same dimensionality (10) that we do].

Don't borrow concepts that you have no clue about. Superstring theory is not the only quantum TOE, it lacks anything resembling evidence, and it has equally likely contenders (Quantum loop gravity, among others). The huge number of dimensions required for quantum theory is more of a drawback then a plus, as it requires a huge leap to assume unobserved, bundled up dimensions. The theory is elegant, but I'm afraid that given the evidence you'd be nuts to jump to conclusions.

 

[Sinai]

I was reading the pole questions and the thought "manipulative wording" popped into my head. Could anybody else understand why that should happen?

The wording of the poll questions is a summary of each of the major positions I have found in this area. Which question(s) do you think was/were improperly worded, and how would you have worded it if you were setting up the poll? Thank you.

 

[Sinai]

Ok...G-D said it was 6 days...then it was 6 days.

Actually, since Genesis was written in Hebrew, the Bible indicates that creation took six yoms. "Day" is the most common English translation of yom--but yom can mean a period of time either shorter (daylight hours, for example) or longer (a season, an era, an age, or an indefinite period of time, for example) than a 24-hour day.

And that's the reason for the poll. Those who think the yoms of Genesis 1 should be interpreted to mean a 24-hour period of time measured looking backwards in time toward the beginning of creation will also tend to think that the Bible's description of creation is at odds with the bulk of scientific thought and evidence (i.e., "mainstream science"). On the other hand, those who think the yoms of the creation account mean something other than such a 24-hour period of time will probably tend to think that the biblical account is not contradicted by mainstream scientific evidence. And there are also those who think the scriptural creation account should not be interpreted literally, and some who hold to the Gap Theory....

 

[KleinerApfel]

I was reading the pole questions and the thought "manipulative wording" popped into my head. Could anybody else understand why that should happen?

You're right Tas, I queried this and was unable to vote because the nearest to a YEC option is sullied by stating we disregard science.

Blessings all, Susana

 

[Captain_Jack_Sparrow]

You're right Tas, I queried this and was unable to vote because the nearest to a YEC option is sullied by stating we disregard science.

Blessings all, Susana

Read it again because you have obviously not understood the wording.

 

[Sinai]

You're right Tas, I queried this and was unable to vote because the nearest to a YEC option is sullied by stating we disregard science.

Blessings all, Susana

Okay, Susana, just for you: Let's add another option:

I believe the universe is
A. about 6000 years old;
B. about 12,000 years old;
C. more than 12,000 years old but less than 55,000 years old; or
D. ____________ years old (state some other YEC figure);
because that is what my Bible says.

I also do not disregard or disbelieve any scientific evidence--no matter what it says. Thus, I also fully believe the large body of scientific thought and evidence that indicates that the universe is between 11 billion and 20 billion Earth-years old.

Although some folks might not understand how I can truthfully believe both that the universe is less than 55 thousand years old and that it is simultaneously over 11 billion years old, such persons do not understand the nature of my thought processes--and that is their problem, not mine.

Any better?

 

[KleinerApfel]

lol!
Nice try, but I won't be voting.

 

[KleinerApfel]

How about if I make up an option for myself?

How old is the earth?

God made everything in 6 days, of 24 hours each, around 6000 years ago, in the manner described in the Genesis accounts.
I base this belief on God’s word.
Any scientific evidence which appears to contradict this has been incorrectly understood.

God Bless you, Susana