How Old is This Thing?

[Teallaura]

Full disclosure: I'm an age of the Earth agnostic - I don't think anyone knows and I'm dubious that it can be known.

But I like to be reasonable so I was wondering, what are the best arguments for the Y or O?

Thanks!

[Cerebrum123]

Full disclosure: I'm an age of the Earth agnostic - I don't think anyone knows and I'm dubious that it can be known.

But I like to be reasonable so I was wondering, what are the best arguments for the Y or O?

Thanks!

For a YEC position I recommend looking here. http://creation.com/
There is a lot to go through though, everything from what the Hebrew in Genesis means, to why the consensus interpretations of the evidence aren't accepted. The key articles page under the "Topics" list is probably a good start though.

[Jedidiah]

Full disclosure: I'm an age of the Earth agnostic - I don't think anyone knows and I'm dubious that it can be known.

But I like to be reasonable so I was wondering, what are the best arguments for the Y or O?

Thanks!

I am not agnostic, I believe in an Old Earth, but I do not see any faith related issues of significance involved. I believe it because "all" scientific evidence points in that direction. I struggled with the issue because I could not reconcile my understanding of the Genesis creation account with all the evidence. I decided to accept both and let it go at that. Then I ran into Hugh Ross from Reasons to Believe. My understanding of the creation account was based only upon what I had heard and rejected as a kid. Hugh Ross read the same creation account and interpreted it very differently. He said something to the effect that; it matched very well what he had learned as a student of science.

[Cow Poke]

I always go back to the cross.

[Cerebrum123]

I always go back to the cross.

The problem is the Good News doesn't make sense unless you know the bad news first.

[Cow Poke]

The problem is the Good News doesn't make sense unless you know the bad news first.

But I don't need to know WHEN the bad news happened, just that it did.

[Cerebrum123]

But I don't need to know WHEN the bad news happened, just that it did.

True, but much of what is being taught as fact would make it so that the bad news never happened, or wasn't nearly as bad as the NT authors depict it.

[Cow Poke]

True, but much of what is being taught as fact would make it so that the bad news never happened, or wasn't nearly as bad as the NT authors depict it.

For example?

[Cerebrum123]

For example?

For example it's being taught there were no Adam and Eve. It's being said by many that they were some kind of "myth". These are usually tied to evolution though.

Old earth views would have death before any possible date for Adam and Eve(the genealogies in Genesis can only be stretched so far). Both of these take away from what Christ taught, and what the other NT authors taught. If death is not the wages of sin, then what did Christ save us from? This is just a small sample of the kind of problems you encounter when trying to fit certain modern ideas into the Bible.

[Cow Poke]

For example it's being taught there were no Adam and Eve. It's being said by many that they were some kind of "myth". These are usually tied to evolution though.

Old earth views would have death before any possible date for Adam and Eve(the genealogies in Genesis can only be stretched so far). Both of these take away from what Christ taught, and what the other NT authors taught. If death is not the wages of sin, then what did Christ save us from? This is just a small sample of the kind of problems you encounter when trying to fit certain modern ideas into the Bible.

Ah... gotcha.

[Teallaura]

For a YEC position I recommend looking here. http://creation.com/
There is a lot to go through though, everything from what the Hebrew in Genesis means, to why the consensus interpretations of the evidence aren't accepted. The key articles page under the "Topics" list is probably a good start though.

I'll check it out. Thanks!

[Teallaura]

I am not agnostic, I believe in an Old Earth, but I do not see any faith related issues of significance involved. I believe it because "all" scientific evidence points in that direction. I struggled with the issue because I could not reconcile my understanding of the Genesis creation account with all the evidence. I decided to accept both and let it go at that. Then I ran into Hugh Ross from Reasons to Believe. My understanding of the creation account was based only upon what I had heard and rejected as a kid. Hugh Ross read the same creation account and interpreted it very differently. He said something to the effect that; it matched very well what he had learned as a student of science.

I'll check that out as well. Thanks.

[Teallaura]

I always go back to the cross.

I try to just stay there.

[Jedidiah]

For example it's being taught there were no Adam and Eve. It's being said by many that they were some kind of "myth". These are usually tied to evolution though.

I do believe that Adam and Eve were the real first people.

Old earth views would have death before any possible date for Adam and Eve(the genealogies in Genesis can only be stretched so far).

There was certainly no human death before the fall, Adam sinned so death came to all men. There is no problem with the genealogies.

[Kbertsche]

Full disclosure: I'm an age of the Earth agnostic - I don't think anyone knows and I'm dubious that it can be known.

But I like to be reasonable so I was wondering, what are the best arguments for the Y or O?

Thanks!

There is LOTS of scientific evidence for an old earth, and NO solid scientific evidence for a young earth. Here are just a few items:
1) the number of annual layers in lake varves puts the oldest back to about 45,000 years (and allows absolute calibration of radiocarbon dates to this age)
2) the thickness of coral reefs puts them back over 100,000 years.
3) the number of annual layers in ice puts them well over 100,000 years
4) the light from SN 1987A took 168,000 years to reach us. Further, its debris ring has been resolved by Hubble and the time lag for the explosion to illuminate this debris ring has been measured. This is all consistent with a 168,000 light-year distance and the present-day speed of light, evidence that the speed of light has not changed. Further yet, the decay of its light curve matched the expected radioactive decay rates, showing that the rates of radioactive decay have not changed in 168,000 years.
5) the ages of the line of volcanos along the Hawaiin Island and Emperor Seamount chain get progressively older the further along the chain one goes away from the hotspot under the island of Hawaii, up to about 80 million years. These ages are consistent with the rate of tectonic plate motion away from this hotspot as measured by GPS satellites.
6) all radioactive elements with half-lives less than about 500 million years are essentially absent from the earth's surface, UNLESS they are presently being made by cosmic rays or some other mechanism (e.g. Radiocarbon). But we DO see elements with half-lives longer than 500 million years, and we see lots more of the long-lived ones than the short-lived ones. This is consistent with a roughly 5 billion year old earth; after about 10 half lives, the isotopes are essentially gone (reduced in abundance by a factor of 1000). In fact, if we assume that U-235 and U-238 were originally the same abundance and look at their present-day abundances, we calculate that the earth is roughly 5 billion years old.