The Age of the Earth - alternatives, anyone?

[Remus]

I would say that whoever is making the claim clearly is not God.

SBG, it's probably a good idea just to let this one go.

 

[Vance]

SBG, it's probably a good idea just to let this one go.

It reminds me strangely of your statement that if you found out tomorrow, without doubt, that evolution is true, you would abandon your Christian faith.

Personally, if I was equally assured that the messenger was God, I would have no problem accepting His statement, of course, but I would ask why the creation was accomplished in such a deceptive way. Since I would know that the purpose was not to deceive, since God can not deceive (which is an intentional act), I would be eager to know the reason behind the choice of a creative process that is, indeed, deceptive.

This is one of the reasons why, given all the information we have, from nature and from Scripture, and considering them as a whole with as little presumption as possible, it is dramatically more likely that God did not create over six literal days six thousand years ago, but instead used evolutionary processes over billions of years.

 

[invisible trousers]

Hi,

It's not about my, or anyone else's, interpretation of the Genesis. It's about what God's Word teaches...

Can you explain to me how I make God a liar..?

See how "what God's Word teaches" is code for "my literal interpretation of Genesis which is the only correct one"? I already said how this reading makes
God a liar, and I'll say it again: A YEC reading of Genesis creates a dilemma where God's physical evidence of creation does not in any way match up with the story of creation in scripture. Both nature and scripture are of God, so they must both be consistent. YECs say that nature and scripture are inconsistent, so that means God is inconsistent and is actively deceiving his followers by telling them a story of creation which contradicts nearly every single piece of the physical evidence of creation.

Since God does not lie to His believers, the YEC interpretation of Genesis is faulty and incorrect.

If you had read my post, you would have seen where I present an idea of a foundational base for the world that could be billions of years old. The pre-Adamic flood idea, that is supported in various scriptures, supports that.

Er..whatever I wasn't responding to your post in the first place.

Can you present the physical evidence you claim..?

Gladly! http://www.talkorigins.org is a great place to start.

Getting back to the point of the thread, can you show me legitimate scientific evidence of a young earth? Surely there has to be physical evidence of a young earth which matches up with the story of a young earth in the bible.

 

[ChristianDude777]

See how "what God's Word teaches" is code for "my literal interpretation of Genesis which is the only correct one"?

Hi,

God's Word is what we Christians have as His Standard. It's His revelation to mankind. There is no other, so of course it's going to be the only correct one.


I'm not sure what else you would expect Christians to use as a gauge for the Truth. Science can't do it because scientific facts change every time a new discovery is made. How can that be a reliable gauge..?

I already said how this reading makes

God a liar, and I'll say it again: A YEC reading of Genesis creates a dilemma where God's physical evidence of creation does not in any way match up with the story of creation in scripture.

And I showed where the scriptures present a possibility of both young present earth and ancient earth foundation, which you seem to have overlooked.

Both nature and scripture are of God, so they must both be consistent. YECs say that nature and scripture are inconsistent, so that means God is inconsistent and is actively deceiving his followers

OR.....maybe the Pre-Adamic flood is accurate and you're statement here is incorrect.

OR....maybe YEC is accurate...

Since God does not lie to His believers, the YEC interpretation of Genesis is faulty and incorrect.

But the Pre-Adamic flood idea makes both plausible, which you seem to have overlooked again.

Getting back to the point of the thread, can you show me legitimate scientific evidence of a young earth? Surely there has to be physical evidence of a young earth which matches up with the story of a young earth in the bible.

The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center
with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The
observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few
hundred million yearsold, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of
its present spiral shape. Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion
years old. Evolutionists call this “the winding-up dilemma,” which they have
known about for fifty years. (*Dr. Humphreys is an Associate Professor of Physics at ICR.)



According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas
and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas. (Davies, K., Distribution of supernova remnants in the galaxy, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1994), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 175–184,)



In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years
before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking,
with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet
and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the
folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition. (Austin, S. A. and J. D. Morris, Tight folds and clastic dikes as evidence for
rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick stratigraphic sequences,
Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, vol. II,
Creation Science Fellowship (1986), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 113–126,)



Uranium and thorium generate helium atoms as they decay to lead. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed that such helium produced in zircon crystals in deep, hot Precambrian granitic rock has not had time to escape.( Gentry, R. V., G. L. Glish, and E. H. McBay, Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste containment, Geophysical Research Letters 9(10):1129–1130)

Though the rocks contain 1.5 billion years worth of nuclear decay products, newlymeasured rates of helium loss from zircon show that the helium has been leaking for only 6,000 (± 2000) years.This is not only evidence for the youth of the earth, but also for episodes of greatly accelerated decay rates of long half-life nuclei within thousands of years ago, compressing radioisotope timescales enormously. (Humphreys, D. R, et al., Helium diffusion age of 6,000 years supports accelerated nuclear decay, Creation Research Society Quarterly 41(1):1–16 (June 2004).



There’s more…



Tim L.

 

[artybloke]

God's Word is what we Christians have as His Standard. It's His revelation to mankind. There is no other, so of course it's going to be the only correct one.

Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once.

This is what invisible trousers said:

See how "what God's Word teaches" is code for "my literal interpretation of Genesis which is the only correct one"?

Please note the highlighted words. What he is saying - and you seem singularly unable to grasp - is that your interpretation of scripture as literal (rather than a TE interpretation of the passage as "symbolic/non-literal" is not the Word of God itself - even if one were to agree with a fundamentalist understanding of inspiration (which I don't) in the first place.

We both read the same text and we both read it in different ways. Your way of reading it is not neccessarily better than mine; in fact, as it contradicts all known scientific knowledge, it's probably worse.

God may or may not have made the Bible infallible; he didn't make your interpretation of it infallible.

 

[ChristianDude777]

Please note the highlighted words. What he is saying - and you seem singularly unable to grasp - is that your interpretation of scripture as literal (rather than a TE interpretation of the passage as "symbolic/non-literal" is not the Word of God itself - even if one were to agree with a fundamentalist understanding of inspiration (which I don't) in the first place.

Hi,



A literal "interpretation" on the scriptures, especially concerning the six day creation account, is supported in other areas of scripture.



Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.



Exodus 31:17 It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.



So a literal interpretation of the six day Creation is more credible than theistic evolution. Unless I’m mistaken there are no scriptures that instruct us to believe the Creation account was anything but literal. If that is indeed the case, one merely opens the door to his or her own personal interpretation. That being the case, one is able to personally interpret any scripture.



Another problem that arises for theistic evolution is the Sabbath Day. God made it holy for a reason. He commanded men to rest on the Sabbath because He rested (ceased) on the Sabbath. The Sabbath Day was a literal 24 hour period.



Yet another problem for the theistic evolution theory comes from the Hebrew words used to describe the Creation account. The Hebrew for evening, morning and day are all literal in their meaning.



So, a literal acceptance of the Creation account isn’t an interpretation. It says what it says.



And furthermore, of smaller weight is what the early Christians believed concerning the six day creation…

AD Augustine "They [pagans] are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of [man as] many thousands of years, though reckoning by the sacred writings we find that not 6,000 years have yet passed" (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis, 12:10).

370 AD Basil The Great "`And there was evening and morning, one day.' Why did he say `one' and not `first'? . . . He said `one' because he was defining the measure of day and night . . . since twenty-four hours fill up the interval of one day"

God may or may not have made the Bible infallible; he didn't make your interpretation of it infallible.

I haven’t interpreted anything. I received the Word for what It says. Even down to the original Hebrew.



Tim L.

 

[Vance]

It is impossible to read Scripture without interpreting it.

A failure to accept this fact will be a stumbling block to true understanding.

 

[shernren]

Hi,
A literal "interpretation" on the scriptures, especially concerning the six day creation account, is supported in other areas of scripture.
[snip]
Another problem that arises for theistic evolution is the Sabbath Day. God made it holy for a reason. He commanded men to rest on the Sabbath because He rested (ceased) on the Sabbath. The Sabbath Day was a literal 24 hour period.

Actually, the Sabbath "Day" is (within the YEC framework) a literal 6000-year period. Why? Because in Genesis it says He created for 6 days, and then He rested for one day. Now YECs take it as literal because Moses uses it as a type of the Sabbath Commandment. But look carefully: in the Sabbath Commandment we are given a cyclic week, i.e. after the Sabbath Day, on the next day we start working again.

So tell me: when the seventh "day" ends, shouldn't God start creating again? If no, then the Creation Week isn't a valid type for the Sabbath Commandment. If yes, then the seventh "day" hasn't ended yet!

In fact, it then makes more sense to interpret the Creation Week as a mythical type rather than a literal type, an event that is divorced from the rest of history rather than forming a sequential beginning to it.

I haven’t interpreted anything. I received the Word for what It says. Even down to the original Hebrew.

I would say comfortably that what you haven't interpreted, you probably haven't read. We all make unconscious interpretations; the trick of it is that sometimes these interpretations are so deeply ingrained that we assume that hey, everybody else should assume these interpretations as well!

I think I don't want to go into the hassle of elaborating any more especially when I've already gone to the trouble of it here: http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=15592081&postcount=32

God's Word is what we Christians have as His Standard. It's His revelation to mankind. There is no other, so of course it's going to be the only correct one.

(emphasis added)

I would understand if you had said "it's the most important one", or "it's the one that tells us most directly who He is", or "it's the one with sufficient truth for salvation". But the only one? Scripture doesn't support what you said about Scripture!

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

(emphasis added)


The Bible clearly states here that men were held responsible for rejecting whatever God had revealed to them through creation! (through "what has been made")

I'm not sure what else you would expect Christians to use as a gauge for the Truth. Science can't do it because scientific facts change every time a new discovery is made. How can that be a reliable gauge..?

Well, obviously the Bible is the ultimate gauge for spiritual truth, truth about God and man and man's relationship with God.


But should the Bible be the ultimate gauge for scientific truth as well? Because if it is, it's not doing a very good job!

 

[shernren]

The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center
with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The
observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few
hundred million yearsold, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of
its present spiral shape. Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion
years old. Evolutionists call this “the winding-up dilemma,” which they have
known about for fifty years. (*Dr. Humphreys is an Associate Professor of Physics at ICR.)

Cosmologists have a good explanation for this. It's called "dark matter". If that doesn't satisfy you, nothing will.

According to astronomical observations, galaxies like our own experience about one supernova (a violently-exploding star) every 25 years. The gas
and dust remnants from such explosions (like the Crab Nebula) expand outward rapidly and should remain visible for over a million years. Yet the nearby parts of our galaxy in which we could observe such gas and dust shells contain only about 200 supernova remnants. That number is consistent with only about 7,000 years worth of supernovas. (Davies, K., Distribution of supernova remnants in the galaxy, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, vol. II, Creation Science Fellowship (1994), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 175–184,)

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE401.html

In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into

hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years
before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking,
with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet
and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the
folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition. (Austin, S. A. and J. D. Morris, Tight folds and clastic dikes as evidence for
rapid deposition and deformation of two very thick stratigraphic sequences,
Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, vol. II,
Creation Science Fellowship (1986), Pittsburgh, PA, pp. 113–126,)

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD510.html

Uranium and thorium generate helium atoms as they decay to lead. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed that such helium produced in zircon crystals in deep, hot Precambrian granitic rock has not had time to escape.( Gentry, R. V., G. L. Glish, and E. H. McBay, Differential helium retention in zircons: implications for nuclear waste containment, Geophysical Research Letters 9(10):1129–1130)

Though the rocks contain 1.5 billion years worth of nuclear decay products, newlymeasured rates of helium loss from zircon show that the helium has been leaking for only 6,000 (± 2000) years.This is not only evidence for the youth of the earth, but also for episodes of greatly accelerated decay rates of long half-life nuclei within thousands of years ago, compressing radioisotope timescales enormously. (Humphreys, D. R, et al., Helium diffusion age of 6,000 years supports accelerated nuclear decay, Creation Research Society Quarterly 41(1):1–16 (June 2004).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/zircons.html

There’s more…

Bring it on!

 

[Remus]

So tell me: when the seventh "day" ends, shouldn't God start creating again? If no, then the Creation Week isn't a valid type for the Sabbath Commandment. If yes, then the seventh "day" hasn't ended yet!

God spends six days creating, rests on the 7th. On God's day off, Satan comes in and tempts Adam and Eve to eat an apple. God comes back to work after His day of rest to find a big mess.

 

[shernren]

God spends six days creating, rests on the 7th. On God's day off, Satan comes in and tempts Adam and Eve to eat an apple. God comes back to work after His day of rest to find a big mess.

I hope you don't literally believe that!

 

[Remus]

 

[Forest]

What if when God comes and He says He did create the world in six days, six thousand years ago? What would you make of this liar claim?

I would believe what He said.

And being curious I would want to ask what went wrong with all of the scientific data.

 

[SBG]

Scientific data or scientific interpretations?

 

[Vance]

I would believe what He said.

And being curious I would want to ask what went wrong with all of the scientific data.

It would not just be the scientific data in favor of an old earth (the dating, the scars, etc, ad infinitum), but the complete ABSENCE of evidence in favor of a young earth. I would ask God why He planted so much false evidence AND wiped out all the evidence that the earth is young. I would assume He had a reason, and obviously a good one (being God and all), but I would still really, really want to know it.

As it is, I think it is best just to assume that God created it just like it looks like He created it, rather than assume some cosmic cover-up. And, this is even more so for all of us who find no contradiction between what the evidence of God's Creation actually says and what Scripture says.

Why in the world would we deny the evidence when we see no Scriptural or theological reason for doing so?

 

[Forest]

Scientific data or scientific interpretations?

Couldn't know for certain which, until He told me.

 

[shernren]

Scientific data or scientific interpretations?

So far most creation science "interpretations" have been shown to be quite inconsistent with known science. So one must either postulate an unknown science, or postulate an extra-scientific working of God (which would make "creation science" a misnomer).

So unless there is a viable creationist interpretation I would wonder if "interpretations" should be in plural up there.

 

[Remus]

If I were in a position that I could question God, I would most likely be laying face down on the ground saying something along the lines of how pathetic I am.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

If I were in a position that I could question God, I would most likely be laying face down on the ground saying something along the lines of how pathetic I am.

Given that whether you are a TE, YEC or OEC, you are still a special creation of God and that he thought humanity worth saying, why spend all of eternity groveling that you are not worth anything when God seems to think otherwise?



And even being human and thus susceptible to vanity and egotistical behavior, the eternal groveling would grow old to me quite quickly. How much more quickly might it grow old to a being that has no vanity or ego problems?

 

[ChristianDude777]

Bring it on!

Scientists now admit there is a phenomenon called a superflood, a catastrophic flood that can transform landscape in a period as short as a few hours. Canyons and valleys as big as the Grand Canyon could have formed in days, not over tens of thousands of years as previously alleged.
Science Magazine, April 2002



The Great Barrier Reef has been estimated to be 4,200 years old. No living thing is older than about 5,000 years, which is consistent with life forms beginning after the time of Noah's worldwide flood.



If the Earth were millions of years old there would be billions of tons of atmospheric carbon trapped in the wet ground of northern boreal forests.
Earth Observatory, NASA



Clams are found at the top of Mount Everest (29,035 ft.), evidence that it must have been underwater at some point. Provides evidence of a catastrophic worldwide flood. Every major mountain range on Earth contains fossilized sea life—far above sea level.



Unfossilized wooden club found in 18-foot deep Stone Age soil layer near Jinan in eastern Shandong province, China.
Evolutionists claim this tool was fashioned by ape men 700,000 years ago, but the wooden club appears to have been fashioned in more recent times by advanced humans, not ape men. The wood club had not fossilized after 700,000 years, evidence it is not as old as paleontologists claim. New Scientist Oct. 17, 2001



Amber (hardened tree sap) with trapped spiders inside, alleged to be milllions of years old, show no evolutionary changes from modern day spiders.
Seattle Times, September 11, 2000



Using newly calculated mitochondrial DNA mutation rate, scientists are able to back date the beginnings of the human species. New data indicates there was an "Eve gene," a common mother who was ancestral to all humans, who lived a mere 6,000 years ago!
Science 279: 28-29, 1998



The even relative background temperature throughout most of the cosmos and a "flat" rather than "scattered in all directions" universe are causing scientists to abandon the "big bang" theory.
London Times, April 23, 2001



Earth's moon has a hot interior. This is evidence of a young origin.
Nicholas Short, Planetary Geology, Prentice-Hall,
New Jersey, 1975, pp. 175-84


Tim L.