How to explain 13.8 billion years?

AvgJoe · Jan 15, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

Here's one interesting theory~~~> How can the light of stars billions of light years away from the earth have reached us if the earth is only thousands of years old? .

Anguspure · Jan 15, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

How about "yes and" instead of "no but"?
The 13th century that the kabbalist Nachmanides (well before the age of scientific discovery you will note) came up with an age of the universe of +/-15 billion years based on concepts of expansion and relativity from the first verses of Genesis.

Gerald Schroeder - Articles - Age of the Universe

SeventyOne · Jan 16, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

Astronomers say it's that based on current theories and academic consensus. It could all change tomorrow. They guess how the whole thing started, then say if they are right then expansion models might look a certain way, and if they are also right about those, based on the tiny bit of the cosmos we can actually see, then the universe might be a certain age range. It's a guess, based on a set of assumptions, which are based on another set of assumptions. It might be easier to win the lotto.

dad · Jan 16, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

No. The distance is unknown actually. The mistake was to believe that.

Alithis · Jan 16, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

they are in error with their means of measurement .

prodromos · Jan 16, 2017

If you accept that the creation of the universe was a supernatural event, then you also have to accept that science is not equipped to determine anything with regards to supernatural events. Science can only determine theories and laws regarding the natural. Based on what they observe and has been observed for as long as people have been recording such details, scientists attempt to create models which fit the data and then extrapolate back using the same model. The problem is that if God brought the entire universe in to being approximately 6000 years ago, the models which scientists have determined will extrapolate back beyond that point when there was in fact nothing, not even the passage of time.

GirdYourLoins · Jan 16, 2017

This argument is nothing more than a smokescreen by atheists to try to "prove" that God does not exist. Like so much of what is taught in our schools as fact, it is a theory based on what scientists have been able to see in a relatively short time (telescopes for a few hundred years compared to what they say is billions of years). Its only a theory.

The Big Bang theory is based on evidence that the universe expanded out from a central point. The Bible says God flung the stars into space, which sounds like a central point to me. Scientists have also had to revise their theories recently as the previous ones didnt work because (to quote a BBC documentary) "its like there is a huge creative force in the universe" and that force is causing the universe to continually expand where according to the big bang theory it should be slowing down and coming to a stop. We have a creative God who is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is still creating the universe.

The revised theory of so called "dark matter" and "dark energy" is the theory the atheists came up with to explain this creative force. Dark because its unseen apparently but it seems appropriate to me that they would choose this term in trying to disprove evidence of God in creation. It is purely that they could not explain why the universe is still in the creation stage so they produced a theory to say there is something there causing it which cannot be seen, measured or recorded.

God is a god of order, not chaos and this can be seen in everything he has created, at every scale. From the universe, to galaxys, to solar systems, right down to atoms and sub atomic particles there is a clear order in there that to me shows a unique creator (compare how electrons move around the nucleus of an atom and planets around a sun and you get an idea of where I am coming from).

People only see the "old universe" as evidence of no God because they want to see it as evidence of no God.

LinkH · Jan 16, 2017

Anguspure said:
How about "yes and" instead of "no but"?
The 13th century that the kabbalist Nachmanides (well before the age of scientific discovery you will note) came up with an age of the universe of +/-15 billion years based on concepts of expansion and relativity from the first verses of Genesis.

Gerald Schroeder - Articles - Age of the Universe

Either I don't get the argument, or something is missing. I've got a PhD, for what it's worth in this discussion. It's not in physics. I think my years of PhD education helped me understand that little bit about correcting for a non-linear expansion of the universe at the end.

What I don't get is how shooting a pulse from the center of the universe is analogous to..... to what? To the earth being created?

Is the argument that if you are at the center of the universe, the 14 billion years many scientists say it took from the creation of the universe would be 6 days from your perspective? If the answer is 'yes', then that is an interesting point. Why doesn't the article make the point if tha tis the case? The question is not how long it takes laser pulses to get to us, but how long ago the earth was created.

Also, why would the days need to be 24 hours? Jewish days are reckoned from sunset to sunset. One day lasted longer so Joshua and the army could defeat the enemy, but it was still a day.

Zoii · Jan 16, 2017

St_Worm2 said:
Hi Zoli, you are definitely correct, the Bible was never meant to be a science textbook. That said, there are many reasons why taking the Bible literally is important.

Perhaps first and foremost is this, if the Creation is considered to be nothing more than a "real nice story", but not true, why should we believe that any of the other "stories" God tells us in the Bible are true? The other question is, if you choose to believe that "some" of the stories in the Bible are true and others aren't (especially when the various stories we are considering are written in an equally believable manner), how do we determine which story is true and which one isn't

There is also the matter of "assignments", which is particularly important when we are trying to decide who to "assign" the title of "Author of Evil" to. Because our sin is a universal trait among our race, we know that it has to have a single cause, and if our progenitors are not the cause (as the Bible tells us they are), that means that God must be IOW, if our race doesn't have "first parents" as the proximate cause of our fallen nature, then the way we are now (IOW, by nature, children of wrath .. Ephesians 2:3) is the way God made us!

These are but two of the reasons (and I hope that makes sense to you).

Yours in Christ,
David

David thank you and I know you mean and I guess your challenging whether I can be christian. You imply that if one story in the bible has believable issues then really doesnt that put the whole story of the bible into question. Again this puts into question just how literal do I have to take the bible and if I have doubts about one small part then I may as well doubt the whole lot.... and I guess if thats true it really does make me question my journey down this road.... ty anyway for an honest answer

Zoii · Jan 16, 2017

SeventyOne said:
Astronomers say it's that based on current theories and academic consensus. It could all change tomorrow. They guess how the whole thing started, then say if they are right then expansion models might look a certain way, and if they are also right about those, based on the tiny bit of the cosmos we can actually see, then the universe might be a certain age range. It's a guess, based on a set of assumptions, which are based on another set of assumptions. It might be easier to win the lotto.

Gosh ... thats so not true. Ive put so much time into trying to understand the science. Its so well researched and tested.... Is it possible that people are espousing what they think as opposed to evidence they have. Biblical evidence we have to acknowledge isnt strong mainly because - the bible isnt meant to be a scientific text - its not a master plan for scientists of now and forever to refer to, to map constellations and journey to other galaxies...it was never its intention...the intention is to set our spiritual path and set a code of conduct for us to live by.... I just feel we are taking a book and misusing its intended purpose.

St_Worm2 · Jan 16, 2017

Zoii said:
David thank you and I know you mean and I guess your challenging whether I can be christian. You imply that if one story in the bible has believable issues then really doesnt that put the whole story of the bible into question. Again this puts into question just how literal do I have to take the bible and if I have doubts about one small part then I may as well doubt the whole lot.... and I guess if thats true it really does make me question my journey down this road.... ty anyway for an honest answer

Hi again Zoii, I hope you don't think that I was calling your salvation into question in my last post, as that was certainly not my intention. I was just trying to explain some of the reasons that I choose to take most of the Bible literally (I don't believe that Jesus was a "door" however), and that when we choose to not take it literally, that we'd better have some real good reasons for doing so.

As an aside, if you are worried about your salvation, do you want to talk about it, and about the ways you can know whether you are saved or not (and how to have assurance if you are)? I'd be happy to if that's what you'd like to do. But just to be clear, I wasn't calling your salvation into question earlier as it never crossed my mind.

Yours in Christ,
David

GirdYourLoins · Jan 16, 2017

As I said in my last post this issue is a smokescreen thrown up by atheists to try to prove God does not exist. if you look at the intelligent design evidence there are theories that fit with the bible as well.

You also need to consider that the whole issue of how these theories arose. Its called the big bang THEORY for the very reason it hasnt been proven.

As I put on another thread recently, I read a biography of Darwin a long time ago in which he admitted that he had been employed to come up with a scientific explanation which would prove that white people are superior to blacks and thereby justify the slave trade. He came up with evolution and that whites are more evolved than blacks to justify continuing with slaves. After reading this biography I gave him my own nickname for him - the "Father of Fascism" as the principles of his teaching and fascism in the third Reich were very similar with teachings of the superior race, etc.

Darwin was employed and funded to do this by people with an agenda. The phrase I have heard to describe the theory of evolution was that it "swept the world" but i believe from what I have read that it may have been an agenda led few who pushed it on the whole world to achieve their goals, in much the same way as we have in recent years had the liberal left pushing their agenda on us with not allowing us to say Jesus is the only way to the Father, gay marriage, transgender, etc.

The enemy is using these issues to draw people away from Jesus. Will you let the enemy achieve his goal?

bcbsr · Jan 16, 2017

NothingIsImpossible said:
Man can't prove its 13+ billion. They just guess essentially. Which is funny when they say "Well you want me to guess God is real? How stupid!", and yet they guess how old the universe is.

It's not a guess. It's was measure astronomically. Even wikipedia can tell you that.

JoeP222w · Jan 16, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

2 Primary challenges of the claim that the universe is "13.8 billion years old":

1. How do they know this? If the claim is based on "Red Shift", this assumes Uniformitarianism, in which is speculation at best.
2. Could God have created a mature universe? He created Adam to be an adult male. Why could He (God) have not created a mature universe?

Recommend reading the Biblical Basis for Modern Science by Henry M. Morris. While not infallible, it gives a strong defense of Biblical Creation and a young universe.

Steve Petersen · Jan 16, 2017

Jim Langston said:
Einstein has shown that light travels at a constant speed, the speed of light, but it has been hypothesized that the speed of light hasn't always been what it is now.

It has been theorized that the speed of light was faster in the past and has slowed down over time. Looking at some measurements of the speed of light over a hundred year period says that this may be right, or it msy be that the instruments in the past just weren't accurate enough.

If, indeed, the speed of light has been slowing down over time then that means the light from those distant galaxies traveled faster when they started so that the light from galaxies far away would of had time to get here in 6000 years.

A problem is that it is extremely difficult to determine if light is slowing down or not because we measure time based on the same measurements we measure light. Sonehow plink's constant is involved byt I don't understand enough physics to figure out how.

If this is true, then not only can't the time it took for the light to get here be figured out but also carbon dating would be thrown out of whack.

Just a theory I heard that would explain it.

CE411: Speed of Light Slowing?

JacksBratt · Jan 16, 2017

Zoii said:
Why do we have to take the bible so literally.

Because it is God's word. As soon as we start to question how "literal" one thing is... it's a slippery slope down as we try to decide what other things are actually "literal" or not.

If you question the validity of the "literal" Genesis account, then you can question the "literal" flood, the "literal" acts recorded by Moses, the "literal" King David.

Then, you will end up facing the "literal" Christ and His death and resurrection....

Zoii said:
It was never intended as an astronomers manual or a one-stop shop for scientists until the end of time. Its a book that provides a paradigm for spirituality. There is no point in checking the bible to repair your telephone, plot a course to mars or to determine the age of our nearest galaxy.... thats not the bible's purpose. So why refer to it when discussing the expanding universe, dark matter and the age of our known universe.

I tend to look at it this way:

Did He tell us how He did it?
Could God do what He said He did?

Then why would I believe some men instead of believing God?

There are a lot of things that the Bible was not intended for. However, if this book we call "the Bible" directly states that something happened a certain way, are you going to deny that explanation?

In the end, we will see that mankind has such a small piece of the puzzle, yet they are telling everyone that they have it all mastered and that you are a fool to believe this old book.

1 Corinthians 3:19King James Version (KJV)

19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

Proverbs 19:3King James Version (KJV)
3 The foolishness of man perverteth his way: and his heart fretteth against the Lord.

Romans 1:22King James Version (KJV)
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

thesunisout · Jan 16, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

Read the bible and see what it says about the historical timeline, starting from Adam. Realize, also, that it takes faith to believe what the bible says, especially when the whole world thinks it is wrong.

SeventyOne · Jan 16, 2017

Zoii said:
Gosh ... thats so not true. Ive put so much time into trying to understand the science. Its so well researched and tested.... Is it possible that people are espousing what they think as opposed to evidence they have. Biblical evidence we have to acknowledge isnt strong mainly because - the bible isnt meant to be a scientific text - its not a master plan for scientists of now and forever to refer to, to map constellations and journey to other galaxies...it was never its intention...the intention is to set our spiritual path and set a code of conduct for us to live by.... I just feel we are taking a book and misusing its intended purpose.

I really hope this is sarcasm.

John Hyperspace · Jan 16, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

The usual reply is "appearance of age": God created everything in the mature state. Thus He created a universe that appeared ancient, about 6,000 years ago. Genesis 1 is used as support of the idea of creation with appearance of age.

Also the statement "astronomers say" is an overgeneralization. The age of the universe as 13-15 billion years is a tentative approximation coming from the inflationary model. It is not a hypothesis without dispute in the academic circles. Many astronomers reject inflationary model; some citing red-shift anomalies as refutation of red-shift as an indicator of recession velocity. Some propose the universe is far less than 13-15 billion years, some far greater (some even propose an infinite universe as the result of "local big bangs").

In other words, no one really knows.

mark kennedy · Jan 16, 2017

Jesus_is_Saint said:
The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

All we know about the creation of the universe is that it was created 'in the beginning', could have been minutes and could have been billions of years before creation week started. The age of the cosmos and the sphere we inhabit is irrelevant to the Christian doctrine of creation. The creation of life in general and man in particular is another matter entirely.

How to explain 13.8 billion years?

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