How old is the earth

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[ March 18, 2004, 03:05 PM: Message edited by: Gina L ]

 

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http://bibleland.homestead.com/creation.html

 

SixKids,
BTW, Did you add the 400 years where the scripture was silent? From the end of the OT prophets to John the baptist the NT?
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Neat websites John3v36~

Music4Him

 

About 4,550,000,000 years. Plus or minus about 50 million.

 

I would lean-toward the view that the Earth is VERY old...probably millions of years old. And I don't think that this view negates the authority/inspiration of Scripture.

 

My personal opinion (feel free to disagree) is that it is about 6000 years old. As for the scientists that say it is older, God can make their carbon dating methods look as old as He wants.

But thats just my opinion.

Tam,

 

Well we know from Scripture that the earth was created in six literal days, and I don't see in Scripture where it supports an old earth view so I would say that according to the Bible the earth is around 6,000 years young.

Science also proves this to be true.


Jim

 

Scientists have also found things in the past that pass 3.5 million years.

I believe the earth is very old, but I agree with Jude- it does not negate Holy Writ.

 

Jude is on the right track. An old earth does not invalidate Scripture in any way.

"God can make their carbon dating methods look as old as He wants."

Carbon dating only works to about 50,000 years. Other methods are used to determine the age of the earth.

"Science also proves this to be true."

Assertion. There is NO science that shows a young earth, in my opinion. Could you give us an example of what science you believe shows a young earth?

 

I think a more interesting question is 'when the Lord returns, will the Earth remain, be cleansed, and be a place of habitation for us?' Just wondering...

 

The Masoretic text, which adds up to the approximately 6000 years had dropped some ciphers meaning 'one hundred' from a number of the genealogies. The earth is a little less than 8000 years old. The information about the text types is here:
http://www.setterfield.org/scriptchron.htm#toadam
and the timeline correcting atomic time to orbital time and coordinating it to Bible is here:
http://www.setterfield.org/timeline.htm

 

Actually, I just did a bit of research on this topic, and I have found that the "Gap Theory" makes the most sense. Using the KJV version of the Bible, it has been shown that Gen. 1:1-2 are referring to a "Pre-Adamite" world. A world that was destroyed and then, after an indetermitable period of time (millions of years) God recreated the earth as we know it in 6 literal days. Adam's "world" is 6,000 years old, but the actual planet is millions of years old.

Here's a link to a great site.

http://www.kjvbible.org

I highly suggest reading the entire website for a full understanding. What's really amazing is that this theory validates the Bible AND science as working together, not in contradiction - which I think is the whole point, anyhow.

 

Nobody can prove in any way that there have even been millions of years, let alone that the universe is millions of years old. Its all circular.

"Lets see, these fossils are millions of years old. We know because they are next to these rocks, and those rocks are millions of years old".

How do they know the rocks are millions of years old? They dont. They assume it since someone else said that "...these rocks are millions of years old because this area here is millions of years old".

Can they prove that that "area" is millions of years old. No. Its all based on certain presuppositions.

There are respected scientific organisations, with brilliant men and women associated with them...that are devoted to promoting the idea that a young earth(6-10,000 years) and universe are not only possible, but are very reasonable and in fact...true.

Reasonable in every way...anthropologically, geologically, and every other way.

I personally believe that the earth and universe are probably about 6000 years old. There have been no "millions" of years, and there has not been one shred of evidence to prove it. People say, as an example, "It takes millions of years for the light to get to us from the stars. If there were no millions of years, we couldnt see the stars. We know how fast light travels, and how far away the stars are, so...?

So? So...God can, with absolute ease, cause the light to already be in place when He said "Stars...be!"

And they were. With the light in place already.

God bless,

Mike

 

*looks at Bible*

Yep, 6-8k.

 

You might want to learn a few facts about Dating Techniques. Young Earth Creationism is based on its own set of "presuppositions" on Bible interpretation, not on the rightly-divided literal wording of Genesis.

 

You might want to learn a few facts about Dating Techniques. Young Earth Creationism is based on its own set of "presuppositions" on Bible interpretation, not on the rightly-divided literal wording of Genesis. </font>[/QUOTE]That's quite a bit of misinformation you are working off of there, word_digger!

1. Dating techniques using any form of radioactive rates as a base ALL use either Planck's constant (h) or the speed of light (c) in the decay rate equation. Measurements have shown both of these 'constants' are not constant. c has decreased with time and h has increased inversely. The only thing that appears constant about those two is the combination hc. Some charts with the references are here: http://www.setterfield.org/Charts.htm#graphs

These changing 'constants' were the subject of much discussion in the peer reviewed scientific journals.

But 1941 was a very interesting year for this. From an email I answered last night:

In early 1941, physicist R. T. Birge, who kept track of the values of all atomic constants, spoke of c values obtained by variety of methods since the mid 1800’s.

Birge acknowledged in the journal Reports on Progress in Physics that:

“These older results are entirely consistent among themselves, but their average is nearly
100 km/s greater than that given by the eight more recent results.”

At that same time, physicist N.E. Dorsey stated: "well known to those acquainted with the several determinations of the velocity of
light, the definitive values successively reported…have, in general, decreased monotonously…”

Then something strange happened in August 1941, that same year that Birge had written the above statement, the following appeared in the introduction of one of his articles. The article was on atomic constants, “with special reference to the speed of light.” The introductory paragraph read in part

“This article is being written upon request, and AT THIS TIME upon request…Any belief in a change in the physical constants of nature is fatal to the spirit of science, as science is now understood.” (emphasis in the original)
From “The General Physical Constants, as of August 1941 with details on the velocity of light only” by Raymond T. Birge, in Reports on Progress in Physics, vol. 8, pp 90-101

Here, for some of the history, are some charts on some of the measurements taken through time (these are from Barry’s major 1987 paper done for Stanford Research Institute)

http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html#2a

http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html#3a

http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html#3b

http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html#3c (keep scrolling down from here and you will see more tables of measurements)

The minute we find that c and h have changed, then we know that decay rates are not constant. There is simply no doubt about that. No matter who denies it, the data sits there.

Thus any dating based on decay rates must be corrected to orbital times by some means. Because the speed of light and the redshift curve are essentially the same (the axes need to be rescaled), this correction can be made via the redshift curve, which is known. The results are the timeline I referenced in my first post here. This is not presupposition based on anything. This is looking at the data and going where it leads. Mathematical bases for this are in Barry's latest paper published by Journal of Theoretics, for those who are interested, here:
http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Links/Papers/Setter.pdf
some feedback and responses may be found here
http://www.setterfield.org/redshiftzerofeedback.htm

2. Genesis presents itself as eyewitness history. You cannot force another meaning upon it and claim that is 'rightly dividing' it. There is nothing in the grammar or styles to indicate it is meant as anything other than historical narrative. You need to accept it or reject it on its own terms, not on terms of your choosing thrust upon it. It presents a very young creation. Take it or leave it.

About the Gap theory, for frozencell: no, it is not possible. There was no death before Adam. If you read Ezekiel 28, from verse 12 on, you will see God speaking, through Ezekiel, to Satan, through the King of Tyre. Satan was created perfect and was the guardian cherub of Eden! This is probably why he was able to deceive Eve. He did not fall until after Eden was created, and therefore did not lead any rebelliion in any pre-Adamite world. In addition, the Hebrew structure of Genesis 1:2 indicates that the subject is being narrowed down to the earth, not that there has been any time lapse. Another quick argument against the Gap Theory is that there is no possibility of any fossils being leftover from any destruction before Genesis 1:2, simply because the devastation of Noah's Flood would have buried them deeply. Thus, any fossils we find today are from AFTER creation week.

 

This "orbital time" versus "atomic time" based on a changing speed of light makes some straightforward predictions which should be easy to verify. Key is that because of the differences, the farther out is space you look the more things should appear to be slowed down. Now, because there is a changing relationship with time between "orbital time" and "atomic time" there should also be a predictable change in the amount of slowdown for any given object with time.

So a very easy way to test the theory would be to look at a range of abjects at different distances that have some periodicity, and see how the periods change with time. Once the distance to the object is known, Barry's formulas should directly yield both the amount of slowdown and the rate at which that slowdown is changing.

One class of objects to be looked at would be what are known as eclipsing binaries. This is where two stars orbit each other in such a way that one star will periodically pass in front of the other star as seen from earth. There should be two types of information from this class of object that could give a first step towards verifying Barry's ideas. The first is that the amount of slowdown should be able to be calculated for the objects. If the objects are resolvable, then their distances from each other and their masses can be easily determined. From this, thier orbital periods are easily calculated. Then the slowing effects of light speed decay should predict how much slower the actual orbital periods are from what would be calculated by the masses and distances. And there should be a definate pattern with increasing distance that matches the light speed decay curves. Has this been widely observed? Second, the observed periods of the orbits should be changing because of the changing relationship between "orbital time" and "atomic time" due to the changing speed of light. This change should be very specific because of Barry's curves. Has this been observed for a variety of objects?

A second class of objects would be pulsars. These objects produce a rotating beam of energy which shows up as a pulse as that beam points towards the earth. By the same reasoning as above, the time between these pulses should be becoming shorter and by a predictable amount because of the changing relationships. Observations of predictable changes would be another step towards showing that Barry's ideas can make predictions and should be investigated further. Are there any such abservations?

There are a variety of other objects in space with measurable periods. Many types of variable stars, short period changes in accretion disks, and so on. This should provide a wealth of opportunities to provide supporting information and that information should be quite abundant. Some of these objects can be observed at incredible distances where the predicted changes would be great.

 

All of this has been asked before, and responded to, in the Discussions area of Barry's website. Check under astronomy for most of what you are talking about here. Most of the comments above are the result of not understanding what is going on.

http://www.setterfield.org/discussionindex.htm

 

"Its all circular.

"Lets see, these fossils are millions of years old. We know because they are next to these rocks, and those rocks are millions of years old".

How do they know the rocks are millions of years old? They dont. They assume it since someone else said that "...these rocks are millions of years old because this area here is millions of years old"."

Where is the circular part? You date the rocks. The fossils found in those rocks are assumed to be the same age as the rocks unless there is some geological reason to think otherwise. There is nothing circular about it. Now if you want to try and show specific problems with the dating methods we can look at those issues. In my opinion, radioactive dating is pretty good "proof" of the ages. If you disagree, please show why.

"There are respected scientific organisations, with brilliant men and women associated with them...that are devoted to promoting the idea that a young earth(6-10,000 years) and universe are not only possible, but are very reasonable and in fact...true.

Reasonable in every way...anthropologically, geologically, and every other way."

Could you please present your best handful of proofs for a young universe? We could have a bit of fun and conversation examining them.

"So? So...God can, with absolute ease, cause the light to already be in place when He said "Stars...be!""

Yes He could. But I have a hard time believing that God would send us light with a detailed and complex history of the universe that never actually happened. Could you tell us why this might be? Besides, which is it? Does the data show the universe to be young (top part of your post) or do you believe that it is all an appearance of age (bottom part of your post)? My honest opinion is that an appearance of age is a very poor explanation. I can get into why if you wish. But, as a trivial, humorous slant, can you demonstrate that the earth was not actually created last Thursday with all the history, knowledge, writings (including Scripture), experience, etc. that you take as real being forged as an appearance of age?