How old is the world?

[Bonhoffer]

 

[LewisWildermuth]

If the rules of physics and the evidence left behind by God from the physical creation of the universe can be trusted... Then the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

 

[Kellentia]

but man was only created 6000 years ago............

 

[LewisWildermuth]

but man was only created 6000 years ago............

Again, man only being around for 6,000 years is against all the evidence that we find. Man has been around for far longer than that but not nearly as long as the Earth has been here.



The only way to get the 6,000 year number is to count generations and assigning ages to those that are not given and assume that none were skipped.



All genetic and physical evidence in Gods creation suggests that this is not the case. Since I do not believe that God would purposely deceive us by placing false evidence in nature I have to assume that the 6,000 year interpretation of the genealogies is wrong and that was not the way that we were intended to read the Bible.

 

[Talcos Stormweaver]

The earth is somewhat old. Not far too old on the standards that our universe applies, but it is safe to say that it is at least older than 6000 years. The many workings of God upon this universe leave traces which do extend beyond 6000 years. If the Earth were to be only 6000-10,000 years old, then how can we explain the wide variety of evidences that it is older. The topics and evidences presented can be found throughout this forum. Arguments, documents, and other things of the like.


Of course, if you want to disagree with that, you (or others), may want to be more specific and start a new thread with a new argument. The variety of arguments that come up leaves scarcely enough room in this thread to prevent confusion.

 

[lucaspa]

I agree with Lewis. The 6,000 year old earth is a human theory based on counting generations in the Bible. The 6,000 -15,000 year old time is a theory of humans advanced because there was data that simply could not be fit within a 6,000 year time frame -- such as tree rings and the time needed to change all those animals on the Ark to give the species we see today. The YECers at ICR and AiG are advocating evolution at hyperspeed to give all those species but still needed some additional time and so pushed the time back from 6,000 years.

 

[Ark Guy]

The 6,000 year old earth is based upon scientific study that just so happens to confirm the Word of God.......As expected.

 

[seebs]

I started a thread on the scientific evidence stuff, so it doesn't spiral out of control in this thread.

 

[Micaiah]

I agree with Lewis. The 6,000 year old earth is a human theory based on counting generations in the Bible. The 6,000 -15,000 year old time is a theory of humans advanced because there was data that simply could not be fit within a 6,000 year time frame -- such as tree rings and the time needed to change all those animals on the Ark to give the species we see today. The YECers at ICR and AiG are advocating evolution at hyperspeed to give all those species but still needed some additional time and so pushed the time back from 6,000 years.

Interesting to see you now identitfy yourself as a Christian Lucaspa. It took some time but glad to see you have come out of the closet

 

[Talcos Stormweaver]

The 6,000 year old earth is based upon scientific study that just so happens to confirm the Word of God.......As expected.

It would confirm the word of God if the study was not a mockery of science. Creation Science selects a conclusion and tries to find evidence for it. This is not science. Instead of working with evidences given to reach a conclusion, the Creation Sciences base themselves on the principle that the conclusion is automatically true, regardless of evidence to the contrary. However, science does not function in the method that Creation Science progresses in. In turn, it fails to properly gather and use data, selectively choosing which information is selected. Instead of an unbiased research, the conclusion is decided, and this allows for a wide range of error. Thus, we can not classify it as science.

This has been discussed before, in previous arguments.

In the end, Creation Science in its present state is a mockery of science due to its Fallacy Filled (tm) methods.

 

[lucaspa]

The 6,000 year old earth is based upon scientific study that just so happens to confirm the Word of God.......As expected.

The theory was devised on the geneologies counted by Bishop Ussher. Nothing else. After that creationists went looking for "scientific study" that would show that.

The problem with this, Ark Guy, is what Karl Popper noted:
If you look only for supporting evidence, then you will find it. Supporting evidence only counts if it is the result of a serious attempt to falsify the theory. YECers make no serious attempts to falsify the theory.

"1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory -- if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions.
3. Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.
5. Confirming evidence should not count *except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory:* and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. " [emphasis Popper's]

There is data that falsifies a young earth. Lots of data. So much so that a 6,000 year old earth was falsified long before Darwin even thought of "evolution".

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/2/part12.html
Many evangelical Christians today suppose that Bible believers have always been in favor of a "young-universe" and "creationism." However, as any student of the history of geology (and religion) knows, by the 1850s all competent evangelical Christian geologists agreed that the earth must be extremely old, and that geological investigations did not support that the Flood "in the days of Noah" literally "covered the whole earth." Rev. William Buckland (head of geology at Oxford), Rev. Adam Sedgwick (head of geology at Cambridge), Rev. Edward Hitchcock (who taught natural theology and geology at Amherst College, Massachusetts), John Pye Smith (head of Homerton Divinity College), Hugh Miller (self taught geologist, and editor of the Free Church of Scotland's newspaper), and Sir John William Dawson (geologist and paleontologist, a Presbyterian brought up in a fundamentalist atmosphere, who also became the only person ever to serve as president of three of the most prestigious geological organizations of Britain and America), all rejected the "Genesis Flood" as an explanation of the geologic record (or any part of that record), and argued that it must have taken a very long time to form the various geologic layers. Neither were their conclusions based on a subconscious desire to support "evolution," since none of the above evangelical Christians were evolutionists, and the earliest works of each of them were composed before Darwin's Origin of Species was published. The plain facts of geology led them to acknowledge the vast antiquity of the earth. And this was before the advent of radiometric dating."

You can confirm this for yourself by looking at historical sources. This is simply a good summary.

 

[Micaiah]

See my thread on the church fathers, and my notes on what the writers of Scripture believed.

 

[lucaspa]

See my thread on the church fathers, and my notes on what the writers of Scripture believed.

And what does that have to do with my post?

 

[Mirror]

Dr.Robert v. Gentry(a non- Christian scientist)
> discovered this while working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
>Coalified wood in the Colorado Plateau
>sacondary polonium halos AKA Radio Halos(dirived from the decaying of uranium)
>for coal to form, exact conditions must be met.
>When wood is buried water infiltrates it.then uranium enters it as well.
>the wood is then compressed(coal doesn't compress. it shaters).this evidence points to a simultaneus event.
>when Uranium entered the wood it left some of its decayed product(lead)
>uranium and lead therfore should decay in uniform.
>the wood has a low lead/uranium ratio
>that same, very low lead/uranium ratio tells that the wood was buried recently and simultaneusly.
> as the lead and uranium decay the ratio down
>In coal gathered in mines in the Colorado Plateau(believed to be of TRIASSIC age).
"the ratio between 238U and 206Pb should be low; instead some such halos have been found with uranium-lead ratios ranging from about 2,200 to over 64,000. meaning that currently accepted ages may be too high by a factor of 10,000, admitting the possibility that the ages of the wood are to be measured in millenia."
source- Geotimes sept.1976
>this information has remained uncllenged and unreputed by the scientific cummunity since it was published in 1976.
>these results pertain to the simultaneus buriul of the Eocene,60 MY ago, the cretaceuos, 110 MY ago, the Jurassic, 160 MY ago and triasic, 225 MY ago.
>this goes for the origin and age of coal wherever it is found.
>as you can see the earth is only a few 1000 years old.

 

[Bushido216]

Polonium Halos? Please, Mirror, come up with something more original.

 

[lucaspa]

Mirror, the polonium halos have been refuted before. One of the refuters is Gentry himself who, at the 1982 Arkansas Trial, had to admit under oath that he falsified some of his data!

Q: You referred to the grant rejection letter of 11 July 1977. Isn't it fair
to say that one reason the request was turned down was because the panel felt
you were to be faulted for using a technique that was known to give false
results?
Gentry: Yes.
Q: And this was not the only time you had to retract results, was it?
Gentry: No.
Q: Did you not invent new alpha activity to explain unusual results and later
admit you erred in so doing?
Gentry: Yes.
Source: Lewin, Roger, 1982, Where is the science in creation science?, _Science_, vol. 215:142-146.

Sorry.

There are other flaws with Gentry's work:

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/revised8.htm
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/wood.html
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/review.htm
http://www.asa3.org/archive/ASA/200012/0036.html
Decay chart http: http://66.186.202.216/polohalo/238udecy.htm

 

[Konnie]

4000-6000 years old.

 

[lucaspa]

4000-6000 years old.

Then how do you deal with my post summarizing that Christian scientists (many of whom were also ministers) falsified that by 1831? Were they all wrong? How about the data that they based the falsification on?

 

[1denomination]

Call me crazy but i choose to belive in the bible. i dont need science or the lack of it to prove or disprove anything to me or for me. Why do we as christians belive john 3:16 and nothing else? I belive the world is young because the bible tells me so, or at least it is my interpretation of the bible. But hey what do i know im just a christian. There comes a time for everyone in which they must decide to belive or not, make a decision. Jesus doesnt like luke warm. now.........God bless

 

[Vance]

Call me crazy but i choose to belive in the bible. i dont need science or the lack of it to prove or disprove anything to me or for me. Why do we as christians belive john 3:16 and nothing else? I belive the world is young because the bible tells me so, or at least it is my interpretation of the bible. But hey what do i know im just a christian. There comes a time for everyone in which they must decide to belive or not, make a decision. Jesus doesnt like luke warm. now.........God bless

OK, lets count these up:

1. If you "believe in the Bible" then you believe the earth is young

2. Those who don't accept a young earth are choosing not to "believe"

3. Those who don't accept a young earth are "lukewarm"

And YEC's keep insisting that YEC's don't make these types of statements which judge the sincerety or depth of other Christian's faith.