The Reckoning of Time

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Absolutely true!

I for one was a Young Earth believer most of my life. However, the more I read, the more i learned, the more I became aware that the earth just could not be 6000 years old.

The old argument that the Bible is right (which a agree with) and science is wrong ran its course. You see, I accepted that for a long time but then I asked my self, are ALL the sciences are wrong. ????????

Did all of the Astronomy, Geology, Radiometric dating, Thermal ionization, Stratigraphy, Physics, Tree ring analyzing, Ice Core Analyzing, all collude together to prove the 6000 year Bible story as wrong????

If they did, then why in the world hasn't the Christian scientists proven all of them wrong. What a law suit that would be!!!!!!!!!!

Yoodles, I was steeped in humanistic secularism growing up with the conviction that the universe was billions of years old. I was saved out of that darkness of lies, drugs, the occult, gambling and sex, etc., through God opening my eyes to the truth of His Word and Son. We walk by faith, not by sight and despite all the so called proofs of science, I can't go back to the wisdom of Egypt.

 

[Rodger]

Yoodles, I was steeped in humanistic secularism growing up with the conviction that the universe was billions of years old. I was saved out of that darkness of lies, drugs, the occult, gambling and sex, etc., through God opening my eyes to the truth of His Word and Son. We walk by faith, not by sight and despite all the so called proofs of science, I can't go back to the wisdom of Egypt.

I appreciate your position.

As for me.....I had to come to the understanding that the Scriptures we have can and do work with the science we have today to validate what truth is.

Please understand that I am in no way trying to change anyones understanding. Allow to give you a few historical facts..........

#1. God, in Scripture did not tell us the age of the earth.
#2. Christians first held that the earth was the center of the Universe.
#3. There was a time when man knew that the earth was flat.

When we read the context of Genesis 1, it does not require one meaning of day (YOM) over another, and if scientific data, drawn from many different disciplines and giving similar answers, convinces us that the earth is billions of years old, then this possible interpretation of day as a long period of time may be the best interpretation to adopt.

Then may I say to you, IMHO, it is doubtful that God’s purpose in giving genealogies was to enable us to calculate the date of creation.
They were given to make sure of the birth line of Christ going back to Adam. If dating Creation had been God’s intention, He could have done so clearly by having Moses write, “So all the years from Adam to Abraham were 2004 years” (or some similar number). But there is no such summary statement in Genesis 5 or Genesis 11.

Then there is the OBSERVABLE factor. Man can now "look" and see and can measure the distance from earth to various stars and galaxies. They can also measure the speed at which they are moving away from us. With those two values, they can “back up” the process to find how long the universe has been expanding. After summarizing three different methods of measuring such expansion, Hugh Ross says they show an average age of the universe of “13.79 ± 0.06 billion years,” and he adds, “The consistency of the three independent methods is remarkable.”
Source: Ross, A Matter of Days, 147, 150.

I realize that young-earth advocates will disagree with my assessment of this evidence because that is exactly what I did for a very long time and as I was doing it, I felt uncomfortable as it just did not seem right.

They will claim that maybe the speed of light was vastly different, maybe the rate of sediment deposit in lakes was vastly different, maybe the speed of movement of the earth’s tectonic plates was vastly different, maybe the rate of decay of radiometric elements in rocks was vastly different, and so forth. Eventually this begins to sound to me like,........
If the facts were different, they would support my position.” But that kind of argument is just an admission that the facts do not support one’s position and that is exactly how I felt.

As for the biblical evidence, I think it can be legitimately and honestly understood to allow for either an old-earth or a young-earth view. I do not think the Bible tells us or intends to tell us the age of the earth or the age of the universe and it does not alter in any way that Jeus is the Christ and we are saved from the judgment our faith in Him.

 

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1. God, in Scripture did not tell us the age of the earth.

true

#2. Christians first held that the earth was the center of the Universe.
#3. There was a time when man knew that the earth was flat.

Straw man arguments.

When we read the context of Genesis 1, it does not require one meaning of day (YOM

As for the biblical evidence, I think it can be legitimately and honestly understood to allow for either an old-earth or a young-earth view. I do not think the Bible tells us or intends to tell us the age of the earth or the age of the universe and it does not alter in any way that Jeus is the Christ and we are saved from the judgment our faith in Him.

) over another, and if scientific data, drawn from many different disciplines and giving similar answers, convinces us that the earth is billions of years old, then this possible interpretation of day as a long period of time may be the best interpretation to adopt.

'Maybes' aren't good enough. If 1,000,000 scientists say one thing and God says the opposite, guess who wins?
May I say

Then may I say to you, IMHO, it is doubtful that God’s purpose in giving genealogies was to enable us to calculate the date of creation.
They were given to make sure of the birth line of Christ going back to Adam. If dating Creation had been God’s intention, He could have done so clearly by having Moses write, “So all the years from Adam to Abraham were 2004 years” (or some similar number). But there is no such summary statement in Genesis 5 or Genesis 11.

But don't you think it rather extreme to go from genealogies of around 6000 years to genealogies of around 6 million years? There would be way too many gaps to fill in . IMHO

Then there is the OBSERVABLE factor. Man can now "look" and see and can measure the distance from earth to various stars and galaxies. They can also measure the speed at which they are moving away from us. With those two values, they can “back up” the process to find how long the universe has been expanding. After summarizing three different methods of measuring such expansion, Hugh Ross says they show an average age of the universe of “13.79 ± 0.06 billion years,” and he adds, “The consistency of the three independent methods is remarkable.”
Source: Ross, A Matter of Days, 147, 150.

I remember seeing Hugh Ross back in 1976 at a lecture and was not impressed.

The Dubious Apologetics of Hugh Ross

Danny Faulkner, Ph.D. Astronomy Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, volume 13, number 2, pp. 52-60, 1999. *Additional resources are available at the bottom of this article. The astronomer Hugh Ross has had a great impact on many churches and individuals in recent years. His organization...

www.icr.org

They will claim that maybe the speed of light was vastly different, maybe the rate of sediment deposit in lakes was vastly different, maybe the speed of movement of the earth’s tectonic plates was vastly different, maybe the rate of decay of radiometric elements in rocks was vastly different, and so forth. Eventually this begins to sound to me like,........
If the facts were different, they would support my position.” But that kind of argument is just an admission that the facts do not support one’s position and that is exactly how I felt.

Maybe, Put in actuality, God does not mislead. Evening and morning equals one day

As for the biblical evidence, I think it can be legitimately and honestly understood to allow for either an old-earth or a young-earth view. I do not think the Bible tells us or intends to tell us the age of the earth or the age of the universe and it does not alter in any way that Jeus is the Christ and we are saved from the judgment our faith in Him.

How can we trust a God for our salvation whom misleads us in His Word?

 

[Rodger]

true

Straw man arguments.

'Maybes' aren't good enough. If 1,000,000 scientists say one thing and God says the opposite, guess who wins?
May I say

But don't you think it rather extreme to go from genealogies of around 6000 years to genealogies of around 6 million years? There would be way too many gaps to fill in . IMHO

I remember seeing Hugh Ross back in 1976 at a lecture and was not impressed.

The Dubious Apologetics of Hugh Ross

Danny Faulkner, Ph.D. Astronomy Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, volume 13, number 2, pp. 52-60, 1999. *Additional resources are available at the bottom of this article. The astronomer Hugh Ross has had a great impact on many churches and individuals in recent years. His organization...

www.icr.org

Maybe, Put in actuality, God does not mislead. Evening and morning equals one day


How can we trust a God for our salvation whom misleads us in His Word?

No sir, you are incorrect. Those are not "strawman arguments" at all but are actual 100% historical facts.

You said.......
" How can we trust a God for our salvation whom misleads us in His Word?"

That is a product of your imagination. No one has suggested that.

I actually said.....
" I do not think the Bible tells us or intends to tell us the age of the earth or the age of the universe and it does not alter in any way that Jeus is the Christ and we are saved from the judgment our faith in Him."

IMHO, we can't be absolutely certain of the age of the earth or cration because Genesis 1 is not explicit.

Either view can be supported with Biblical text and scientific evidence. I am not bringing this topic up to cause contention in any way.

To me, as I said, Christians should seek unity in the truth that God created the heavens and the Earth. The details of when creation occurred is not an issue over which Christians ought to suffer doubt or discord.

Again, not to argue at all, but to say, since you reject the Old Earth answer you then are a Young Earth believer in that the Creation/Earth is approx. 6000 years old.

That means you believe that Adam and Eve lived alongside of prehistoric dinosaurs and that Noah took 2 of each one on the ark.
There has been about 1500 dinosaur skeletons found. How do you explain how Niah got all of them on the Ark.????

Question....Did you know that the Young Earth heresy started with the Seventh-Day Adventists and Ellen G. White? The Young Earth view didn't exist until Seventh-Day Adventism.

 

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No sir, you are incorrect. Those are not "strawman arguments" at all but are actual 100% historical facts.

A "strawman argument" is a logical fallacy where someone misrepresents their opponent's position by creating a distorted, weaker version of their argument, making it easier to attack and refute, instead of addressing the actual point being made; essentially, they build a "straw man" that is easily knocked down, like a scarecrow,

I've spent too much time on this secondary issue thus far, so, I wish you the best in your walk with Jesus.

Oh wait, reading through your post, I couldn't let this typical objection go unanswered...

"Question....Did you know that the Young Earth heresy started with the Seventh-Day Adventists and Ellen G. White? The Young Earth view didn't exist until Seventh-Day Adventism."

Isn't this guilt by association? Anyhow, the real question is 'is it according to God's Word?', not who started it.

A "guilt by association fallacy" is a logical fallacy where someone is judged or blamed for something solely because they are associated with a person or group that is considered bad, even if they themselves have not done anything wrong, essentially implying that their connection to this group makes them guilty as well;

While there wasn't a widespread "young earth" perspective among early Christians, the dominant interpretation of the Bible during the early Christian era generally supported a literal reading of the Genesis creation story, which would imply a relatively young earth, as most early Christians believed in the inerrancy of scripture and interpreted the "days" of creation as 24-hour periods.

As I do.

Once again, 'I wish you the best in your walk with Jesus'.

 

[Rodger]

A "strawman argument" is a logical fallacy where someone misrepresents their opponent's position by creating a distorted, weaker version of their argument, making it easier to attack and refute, instead of addressing the actual point being made; essentially, they build a "straw man" that is easily knocked down, like a scarecrow,

I've spent too much time on this secondary issue thus far, so, I wish you the best in your walk with Jesus.

Oh wait, reading through your post, I couldn't let this typical objection go unanswered...

"Question....Did you know that the Young Earth heresy started with the Seventh-Day Adventists and Ellen G. White? The Young Earth view didn't exist until Seventh-Day Adventism."

Isn't this guilt by association? Anyhow, the real question is 'is it according to God's Word?', not who started it.

A "guilt by association fallacy" is a logical fallacy where someone is judged or blamed for something solely because they are associated with a person or group that is considered bad, even if they themselves have not done anything wrong, essentially implying that their connection to this group makes them guilty as well;

While there wasn't a widespread "young earth" perspective among early Christians, the dominant interpretation of the Bible during the early Christian era generally supported a literal reading of the Genesis creation story, which would imply a relatively young earth, as most early Christians believed in the inerrancy of scripture and interpreted the "days" of creation as 24-hour periods.

As I do.

Once again, 'I wish you the best in your walk with Jesus'.

Same to you my friend. Be well and I said, I have no intent on changing anyone's opinion or mind.

FYI......I also believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.