Does it Matter at all what the Age of the Earth is?

[Centrist]

In all, no it does not matter. People read too far INTO the text, while ignoring the message.

Like this- "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Of course! We all know it's John 3:16.

What if it said "Fer Gawd zho lovt zhe vourld, zhat zhi gaive hees uwnly zhegotin Zon, zhhat whoevher thinkith inn'ehm zhhuld nah pearishe, bhut haze zheveirlaushzing lihfe.", instead? Gross misspelling, of course, but, does the spelling change the message?
Does the Earth's age change the message? John 3:16 is still John 3:16 no matter how it's misspelled (or is it?).

Looking back, this has caused me a significant amount of grief when I was searching for a church to be part of. Do you have any idea how many psuedo-Christian churches push the Young Earth theory, enough that if you disagree you are now questioning the integrity of the Holy Bible? You are questioning the integrity of the pastor and his respective church? Dropping names here would likely get me in trouble, but I have spoken about this a few times. It used to bother me a lot until I finally decided to go back to the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints. But that's a debate for another time.

 

[rockytopva]

Time is a concept that comes and goes with planet earth.

And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: - Revelation 10:5-6

 

[shodan]

Thank you for your thoughts and I couldn't agree more that God created all things. I have wondered what the "fight" is often about. But recently I discovered it is easy to determine an age for Adam's creation of about 6,000 years ago, strictly using the Bible. So I have had to wonder, if God tells us, is it really a "minor" issue? I would like your feedback on that after you have some time to ponder it.

Here is where the confusion lies. The age of Adam does not give us any basis from which to determine the age of Planet Earth.

GENESIS One: An Aid to Reading & Understanding the Context

Actually take your Bible and read Genesis 1 HOW does each day begin? “And God said…” Underline that phrase in each verse. WHERE in the text does each day begin? Circle the numbers of these ve…

textsincontext.wordpress.com

 

[deepblue]

Personally I think it matters if people don't want to look like numpties.

All the evidence points to an age of the earth of about 4,500 million years.

The age of the earth (and the geological evidence pointing to it) and the theory of evolution are two separate things. What one believes about evolutionary theory is another matter.

 

[Mike B]

Coming to any type of firm conclusion with Genesis 1 is something I have wrestled with, at length.

Being a bit of a space/cosmology nerd, I know there are certain processes that have taken place
in the universe that require extended lengths of time..not in thousands of years, but in millions and
billions of years.

There is no question that God created the Universe. He wanted to make it, and BANG!...there it was.

Einstein determined that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, however for the Universe
to have expanded so quickly (based on the big bang theory) that would mean that particles had to
have moved faster than light speed. I believe when God created the Universe he just created stuff in
it's place...making stuff a few billion light years away is nothing for God to overcome.

Many things can be explained away in order to support a "young Earth" viewpoint, however there
are a few issues that simply refuse to fit that narrative.

One being the Chicxulub impact. If that had occurred only a few thousand years ago, we would still
be feeling the effects today. That, and it certainly would have been spoken of by the historians of
the day.

Another is the presence of iron and minute traces of precious metals in the human body. Iron is created
inside massive stars through nuclear fusion. A stars nuclear process turns hydrogen into helium, and from
there it goes on to create carbon, oxygen and some other gasses, but ultimately these stars run out of fuel
and explode as supernovas, scattering left over materials, gases and iron atoms across space.

The Earth is made out of that leftover stuff, and God formed us from it.

Gen 1:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and man became a living soul.

Ultimately, I've come to the conclusion that we'll just have to wait for an answer.

 

[Ben1445]

Coming to any type of firm conclusion with Genesis 1 is something I have wrestled with, at length.

Being a bit of a space/cosmology nerd, I know there are certain processes that have taken place
in the universe that require extended lengths of time..not in thousands of years, but in millions and
billions of years.

There is no question that God created the Universe. He wanted to make it, and BANG!...there it was.

Einstein determined that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, however for the Universe
to have expanded so quickly (based on the big bang theory) that would mean that particles had to
have moved faster than light speed. I believe when God created the Universe he just created stuff in
it's place...making stuff a few billion light years away is nothing for God to overcome.

Many things can be explained away in order to support a "young Earth" viewpoint, however there
are a few issues that simply refuse to fit that narrative.

One being the Chicxulub impact. If that had occurred only a few thousand years ago, we would still
be feeling the effects today. That, and it certainly would have been spoken of by the historians of
the day.

Well , the fact that it is under water means that whatever impact you expect to still feel has long since been normalized by the regulation of the tides.

And Noah’s flood would be the perfect time for such an event to be not recorded because nobody local survived the event. But if those historians were worth their salt, they would have recorded something. A message in a bottle, maybe?

Another is the presence of iron and minute traces of precious metals in the human body. Iron is created
inside massive stars through nuclear fusion. A stars nuclear process turns hydrogen into helium, and from
there it goes on to create carbon, oxygen and some other gasses, but ultimately these stars run out of fuel
and explode as supernovas, scattering left over materials, gases and iron atoms across space.

The Earth is made out of that leftover stuff, and God formed us from it.

You assume that the earth is made of leftovers.

We ate turkey for Thanksgiving last year. The menu is the same exact stuff this year. Must be leftovers from last year, huh?

Oh well! I suppose God must be limited to whatever he can find lying around?

Your view of what God did is seen not by what He said He did. Instead you make it what scientists think could have happened but have no way of substantiating.

Gen 1:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and man became a living soul.

You are reading way to far between the lines to say that what that is saying is the dust came from stars that blew up.

Ultimately, I've come to the conclusion that we'll just have to wait for an answer.

Genesis one was good enough. But for those who are not sure still there is Exodus.

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.


For those unsure of the math, the seventh day God rested, the day before that, God formed Adam, two days before Adam, God ordered the heavens with the Sun, moon and stars. And five days before that, nothing had been made.

Heaven did not exist a week before Adam.
Earth did not exist a week before Adam.
The sea did not exist a week before Adam.
Anything that is in any of those did not exist before Adam.

 

[Mike B]

Ben, please forgive me if I implied certain belief in any of those thoughts.

Coming to any type of firm conclusion with Genesis 1 is something I have wrestled with, at length.

While you do not, I struggle with this, as do many others I am sure.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.