Older than me.
toldailytopic: How old is the earth?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Alate_One
Well-known member
Says the man that apparently thinks himself a mind and heart reader. :chuckle:
The problem is, you're trying to make this verse's theology into science. It doesn't work. I'm not doing what you propose, turning science into theology.
If you look at this scientifically, things are visible, they are all made of matter. Go small enough with matter and you can't see it. If you go back to the big bang, none of the things involved were visible, so the verse isn't violated anyway.
The only difference between your position and mine is you believe God directly made the objects. I believe God designed a factory to make the objects. Which takes more effort? Which displays God's majesty more? I think the processes of creation show God's majesty MORE than your assumptions.
And it could be God compressed billions of years into six days. Or it could be that six days is simply a figure of speech when talking about creation. I don't know for sure, but I know what the evidence shows.
Wow. . .apparently you have no sense of irony Sozo . . .
| But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. |
Think your name-calling and hate-mongering is going to help you out?
I believe God gave us creation to study and understand. If there is a perceived conflict between God's word and science we misunderstand one or the other. From the study of Genesis 1 have done, I don't see "six days" as the main point of the account. I know the science well, and know what it implies. I don't believe God is deceptive with His creation. I believe both are true.
No, it is you that puts science on a pedestal such that scripture MUST teach science or it is worthless. I believe scripture is not intended to teach science and that doesn't diminish it at all. Scripture teaches us what science never can.
I trust God, not you. Why should I believe someone with so much hate in his words? A man who claims to be a Christian and destroys the faith of others is easily worse than a man that wears women's clothing.
| Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea. |
| "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. |
| He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 31They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household." |
If you are in heaven, Sozo, I have a very strong suspicion you'll be very surprised as to how many people are there with you.
"For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."
-Jesus Christ
[Matt 12:34 & Luke 6:45]
Alate_One
Well-known member
You need to tell Sozo that . . . . if HIS words are any guide . . .
WizardofOz
New member
Bump
What looks that way?
WizardofOz
New member
Carl Sagan said that?
You're not very good at this science stuff either, are you. :chuckle:
Every problem I've had in life, I have gotten my self out of. Nearly everything I own came from my own hard work. there's nothing I need to be saved from, therefore no need for a saviour that never existed to begin with.
So nothing real then, got ya. Here's a thought, quit worrying about what happens when you die and live life.
And what have I done wrong? What is it that you are accusing me of? Or are you about to tell me that whole silly story about the talking snake that convinced a woman that was made from a rib to eat from a magic tree?
Well yeah, there are lots of other bad thing that are really bad things one can do, but there is no Hell for them to go to. Just a grave like everyone else. Can you prove that Hell exists? I know there's a city in Montana and another in Norway that are named Hell, but theres no Satan there.
Exactly as he is described in the Bible, no. Could there have been a man that the myth was based on? Now that does sound probable. Many men claimed to be the progeny of one deity or another in the ancient world, some of them even did extrordinary things, like Alexander the Great. Religious change was also not unheard of in the ancient world, such as Akhenaten's religious reform in Egypt. Actually the Jesus myth paralells the myth of Osiris.
Flipper
New member
Although this observation is not invalid, it seems to imply that scientists are not aware of these assumptions and that they don't correct or test for them as much as is possible. Let's look at them point by point:
There's a reason why igneous rocks are preferred for radiometric dating. Once they solidify, amounts of isotopes with long half-lives become fixed, and these isotopes decay into other isotopes at a known rate. The ratio of parent and daughter minerals can be measured and the age of the rocks extrapolated. There are a number of different decay clocks that can be measured, and they all agree very nicely with each other. That implies two things - that the rate of radioactive decay has been constant (unless there's some undiscovered process able to change all decay clocks at once in a way that maintains physical consistency with each other), and that we can use these known decay rates to figure out the absolute age of the rock when parent isotopes became fixed.
Where the process falls down is in measuring objects such as conglomerates or sedimentary rocks that are made up of much older rock samples. So a scientist would have to use a different technique to work out the age of such rocks.
But we can do tests on isotopes today to see what effect extreme physical conditions have on decay rates, and we can look at the distribution of minerals and decay products in a rock to see whether there has been any leaching or changes since the rock was created.
If a rock has been leached, permineralized, or metamorphosed, a good scientist will identify this and will have to adjust or discard a particular dating method as appropriate. Why invoke some unknown mysterious process that has affected all rocks equally without good reason? The only reason AIG has is that it's not consistent with a biblically derived date and, as William Dembski said, if you set aside your biblical conviction regarding the age of the earth, how old would you honestly conclude it was, based on the evidence?
Assuming otherwise creates some serious problems for the young earth, like what happened to all the heat and radiation that would be generated when a 4,000 year old earth undergoes 4.5 billion years of radioactive decay? And why did God create conditions that inexorably imply an old earth? Did he do this at the same time he was stretching out the light to make it look like the universe was billions of years old, or did it happen later, during the flood?
Furthermore, it makes a complete nonsense of a large chunk of the fine-tuning argument that creationists like to use to demonstrate the improbability of our existence. Fine-tuning relies to a large part on consistent and constant nuclear forces.
Not only that, but the radiometric ages nicely agree with other data. For example (and there are many others), physics and astronomy imply that the earth's rotation is gradually slowing down, and we find evidence for exactly that in the seasonal banding of Devonian corals. In fact, the banding agrees with the expected increase in the number of days that the astronomical data "predicts".
A further serious hole in the young earth appears in the absence of detectable isotopes with short-lived half-lives which are also not being continually produced by natural nuclear reactions. There's a rather nice table that illustrates that here. If the earth was young, you would expect to find at least some of these isotopes in detectable amounts.
Alate_One
Well-known member
Which would almost make sense . . . if Sozo didn't already hold science over scripture.
As Luther said, "Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth," Doesn't it make Joshua and by implication, God out to be a liar to tell the sun to stand still, if we say science tells us the sun is always still with respect to the earth?
So if we want to truly "believe God" we should all become geocentrists, no? And believe there are waters above the heavens, Stars can fall to earth etc. That's where "the Bible says it, I must believe it" leads if you're actually consistent. But Sozo and the like aren't, they pick and choose the parts of scripture they can accept literally and those they can't.
This same logic has been used before and discarded. The argument over the age of the earth, creation and evolution are just a replay of the geocentrism argument that has been long settled.
Or you can acknowledge that God chose to use the "science" of the time to speak to ancient people, just as He used their specific language and culture to communicate. With that in mind we can understand that scientific knowledge is actually not at all important to understand messages of faith. Its simply part of the cultural backdrop.
Gap Theory
Gap Theory
What's your opinion on "The Gap Theory" and other verses in the bible that some say would support such a theory?
Jer 4:23–26; 2 Pet 3:5–8
In Isaiah 14:13, who does lucifer have a throne over?
Why is not possible that the 6 days of creation aren't 6000 years instead of 6 24hour periods if a day is as 1000 years to the Lord in verse 8?
Gap Theory
What's your opinion on "The Gap Theory" and other verses in the bible that some say would support such a theory?
Jer 4:23–26; 2 Pet 3:5–8
In Isaiah 14:13, who does lucifer have a throne over?
Why is not possible that the 6 days of creation aren't 6000 years instead of 6 24hour periods if a day is as 1000 years to the Lord in verse 8?
The Earth.:dunce::duh:
Except that knowing, full well, the Earth moves and the sun does not we still say, "sunrise." and, "sunset."
WizardofOz
New member
zoo22
Well-known member
I think the world is about 4.5 billion years old.
This is mostly based on what I understand of radiometric dating, which I really don't know all that much about... Certainly not enough to seriously discuss it scientifically.
Related, RIP Bob B., who's presence is missed in a TOL discussion on the topic.
This is mostly based on what I understand of radiometric dating, which I really don't know all that much about... Certainly not enough to seriously discuss it scientifically.
Related, RIP Bob B., who's presence is missed in a TOL discussion on the topic.
Sure!No Stripe, not at all.
Care to enlighten me?
I believe you said, "Prove it under reasonable scientific conditions", when reasonable science is almost always done without ever generating a proof.
No biggie.
Selaphiel
Well-known member
Why is there not a single shred of evidence from the YECs? All I see is insults and old creationist clichés which have been refuted a billion times over.
The position of some of the YECs at least seem to be that God is a great deceiver, telling us one thing but make it appear in another way giving us some kind of unreasonable test of faith.
You are throwing the entire scientific method out the window, yet you are hypocritical enough to use computers, modern medicine and cars, all results of modern science developed by the EXACT same method used in science that deals with the age of the earth and universe.
There are some options:
1) You discard all of science
2) You falsify current science with evidence and proper scientific methodology.
I agree that Genesis says 6 literal days, but how on earth is that scientific evidence? Genesis is written in an ancient Israelic context, and thus uses the cosmology of that day to express creation theology. The meaning of Gensis 1 and 2 is not science, it is probably not even creatio ex nihilo (the verb translated as create is a discussion in itself) as it is understood by the western mind. It is about assigning function to the universe.
The imagery used in Genesis 1 gives association to ordination of temples, areas are separated and assigned function (God forms order out of chaos, the Hebrew idea of order is that which is functional). Do you literally believe God took a rest on the couch the seventh day as well? Resting is another image referring to kings resting in power when they have seized it. Genesis 1 can thus be read and understood as a temple text, God ordaining the universe as his temple before resting in power on the 7th day. That is the theology of Genesis 1, the cosmology used to express that idea really is wildly irrelevant.
The Bible is a salvation narrative, a work of theology expressed in ancient cosmology. Forcing the Bible to be a book on science is not valid, it almost becomes idolatry and worship of the bible instead of God and truth.
If you really think supporting and working for scientific truth will send you to hell, you have a theology which portrays God as a deceiver and one who sadistically tests mankind with unreasonable tests just to see if they break one of his fetishes so he can send you to hell. That does not sound like the God of the Bible who is described as one who loves us and have great concern for us and who has mankind as the focal point for his entire divine plan.
So either state that you openly dismiss science entirely or present some actual scientific evidence that demonstrates that you are correct.
The position of some of the YECs at least seem to be that God is a great deceiver, telling us one thing but make it appear in another way giving us some kind of unreasonable test of faith.
You are throwing the entire scientific method out the window, yet you are hypocritical enough to use computers, modern medicine and cars, all results of modern science developed by the EXACT same method used in science that deals with the age of the earth and universe.
There are some options:
1) You discard all of science
2) You falsify current science with evidence and proper scientific methodology.
I agree that Genesis says 6 literal days, but how on earth is that scientific evidence? Genesis is written in an ancient Israelic context, and thus uses the cosmology of that day to express creation theology. The meaning of Gensis 1 and 2 is not science, it is probably not even creatio ex nihilo (the verb translated as create is a discussion in itself) as it is understood by the western mind. It is about assigning function to the universe.
The imagery used in Genesis 1 gives association to ordination of temples, areas are separated and assigned function (God forms order out of chaos, the Hebrew idea of order is that which is functional). Do you literally believe God took a rest on the couch the seventh day as well? Resting is another image referring to kings resting in power when they have seized it. Genesis 1 can thus be read and understood as a temple text, God ordaining the universe as his temple before resting in power on the 7th day. That is the theology of Genesis 1, the cosmology used to express that idea really is wildly irrelevant.
The Bible is a salvation narrative, a work of theology expressed in ancient cosmology. Forcing the Bible to be a book on science is not valid, it almost becomes idolatry and worship of the bible instead of God and truth.
If you really think supporting and working for scientific truth will send you to hell, you have a theology which portrays God as a deceiver and one who sadistically tests mankind with unreasonable tests just to see if they break one of his fetishes so he can send you to hell. That does not sound like the God of the Bible who is described as one who loves us and have great concern for us and who has mankind as the focal point for his entire divine plan.
So either state that you openly dismiss science entirely or present some actual scientific evidence that demonstrates that you are correct.
Because your eyes don't work? :idunno:
Typical atheist response. Someone has responded previously therefore the question shouldn't be asked again.
That's not hypocritical, you moron!
Hypocritical is claiming to be a Christian and denying the simple teaching of the bible in favour of human understanding.
Those are two options. Fortunately we're not stupid. We can count past two. I, personally, can count to at least 81. :up:
It's not. It's a valid scientific assumption.
Which is all evidence against six days, how?
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