Age of the Earth.

[URAVIP2ME]

You do understand that the Devil, Satan, Lucifer etc. is not found anywhere in Genesis?

The connection is made at: Revelation 12:9,12.

Jesus also made the connection at John 8:44 because the first lie is recorded at Genesis 3:4, and Jesus calls the father of the first lie: the devil.

 

[tumbleweed41]

So, it was the Christians who inserted the Devil into Genesis, not the Hebrews who actually passed down and wrote and studied the Torah for close to a thousand years.

The connection is made at: Revelation 12:9,12.

9And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
10And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
11And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
12Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

Jesus also made the connection at John 8:44 because the first lie is recorded at Genesis 3:4, and Jesus calls the father of the first lie: the devil.

44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.


I can see where you could "make the connection", in a roundabout way.

But back to the topic at hand, do you believe the Devil planted the overwhelming evidence of an earth that is over 4.5 billion years old in order to lead the world into a great deception?
Would that make Satan not only the "father of lies" but also the "father of modern science".
Do you attribute that much power to Satan?

 

[JustWondering2]

Good Post and questions Tumbleweed and I agree with you. But I think that should be 4.5 Billion years, not to nit-pick.

 

[tumbleweed41]

Good Post and questions Tumbleweed and I agree with you. But I think that should be 4.5 Billion years, not to nit-pick.

Sorry, hungover, fixed, thanks......

 

[JustWondering2]

No problem man. Oh and me too, hung over that is. We cooked on the grill and sat around drinking beers and playing rockband till late last night! Was much fun!

 

[URAVIP2ME]

So, it was the Christians who inserted the Devil into Genesis, not the Hebrews who actually passed down and wrote and studied the Torah for close to a thousand years.
9And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
10And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
11And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
12Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
I can see where you could "make the connection", in a roundabout way.
But back to the topic at hand, do you believe the Devil planted the overwhelming evidence of an earth that is over 4.5 billion years old in order to lead the world into a great deception?
Would that make Satan not only the "father of lies" but also the "father of modern science".
Do you attribute that much power to Satan?

Genesis is about getting the earth ready for mankind to inhabit.
There is no time length mentioned for the six creative days just as there is no close mentioned for the 7th day of Genesis. There is no mention if even each of the creative days are of the same time length.

Doesn't it seem more like the devil wants people to take the creative days of Genesis as literal 24-hour days, even though Gen 2:4 sums up all of the creative days as: a day?
Isn't it the clergy class, and not science, that has trouble with CMBR?
Although 2nd Corinthians 2:4 names Satan as the god of this world, Satan is the god of this world of badness not creation. Satan has no power to tempt anyone beyond their will.

Titus wrote that God [Creator God] can not lie. So there is no way that God would make the earth look or appear older/younger than what it is.
Apparently Satan wants people to believe earth is younger than it is, otherwise why would the religious leaders be inclined to teach lies about what Genesis does not say?

 

[Autodidact]

Genesis is about getting the earth ready for mankind to inhabit.
There is no time length mentioned for the six creative days just as there is no close mentioned for the 7th day of Genesis. There is no mention if even each of the creative days are of the same time length.

Doesn't it seem more like the devil wants people to take the creative days of Genesis as literal 24-hour days, even though Gen 2:4 sums up all of the creative days as: a day?
Isn't it the clergy class, and not science, that has trouble with CMBR?
Although 2nd Corinthians 2:4 names Satan as the god of this world, Satan is the god of this world of badness not creation. Satan has no power to tempt anyone beyond their will.

Titus wrote that God [Creator God] can not lie. So there is no way that God would make the earth look or appear older/younger than what it is.
Apparently Satan wants people to believe earth is younger than it is, otherwise why would the religious leaders be inclined to teach lies about what Genesis does not say?

Well that's a nice change of pace. We have at least one poster here at RF who believes the devil is making the earth appear older than it is. Any idea how you could resolve this dispute--without using science?

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Well that's a nice change of pace. We have at least one poster here at RF who believes the devil is making the earth appear older than it is. Any idea how you could resolve this dispute--without using science?

Is the Bible God's Word, or man's? First, one would have to be convinced that the Bible is really the Word(s) of God. If we look at the fact the word 'day' in Genesis is flexible and not always meant as a literal 24-hour day, then there is room to reason, otherwise if one just parrots what the clergy is saying to him and not searching or researching Scripture as the people did of Acts [17:11] to see if things are really so.

Usually people believe the earth is younger than what it appears.
They use, not Genesis, but from Peter that a thousand years is as a day to literally mean each creative day is one-thousand years long.
Peter is not dealing with creation just as Psalm 90:2,4 is not.
God is not slow respecting his promises. To us a thousand years seems like a long time passing. But God is not limited by time as we now are.
So God can connect accomplishing a purposeful activity to a successful conclusion in much the same way that we can by getting up in the morning to begin a task and conclude it by day's end.

Also since the 7th day of Genesis was still on going in Paul's day [Heb 4:4-10]
that would definitely make the 7th day longer than a 1000 years long.

Since there is no age given in Genesis how can a person date the earth older than what is recorded?

 

[Autodidact]

Is the Bible God's Word, or man's?

Oh, that's easy. Man's.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Oh, that's easy. Man's.

If it was 'man's' we wouldn't be seeing the fulfillment on a global scale of what Jesus foretold as we are today.

 

[Autodidact]

If it was 'man's' we wouldn't be seeing the fulfillment on a global scale of what Jesus foretold as we are today.

Yup. And we're not. For example, Jesus prophesied that He would return during the lifetime of those listening to Him. He was wrong.

 

[Luminous]

Of course it has already been pointed out that all dating methods assume three things, what the conditions were like at time zero, there was no contamination, and a constant decay rate. The same way we have to assume evolution to find evidence for it, we have to assume millions of years to find evidence for it. We can see from global warming scientists tactics that the data that doesn't match what they want, they throw out. Same with earth age data. Recent lava flows show an old age.

your lying, in reallity you have no understanding of anything that you are talking about. science always stands on the side with the least assumptions.

 

[Luminous]

The connection is made at: Revelation 12:9,12.

Jesus also made the connection at John 8:44 because the first lie is recorded at Genesis 3:4, and Jesus calls the father of the first lie: the devil.

The conection is made in your head. to some of us, idol scripture means as much as idol scripture.

 

[joea]

This should tell you how old the earth is..
[youtube]E_EXqdJ4L7I[/youtube]
YouTube - Ricky - The Bible (animals)

 

[DarkSun]

Of course it has already been pointed out that all dating methods assume three things, what the conditions were like at time zero, there was no contamination, and a constant decay rate. The same way we have to assume evolution to find evidence for it, we have to assume millions of years to find evidence for it. We can see from global warming scientists tactics that the data that doesn't match what they want, they throw out. Same with earth age data. Recent lava flows show an old age.

You can't make the comparison between climate change debate and creationism debate. It's not the same thing.

There are multiple competing theories regarding climate change, most of which have equal scientific evidence supporting them. There has been a lot of dangerous group-think in the media about which theory is right, but in the end, each theory is supported to some degree by the available empirical evidence.

This is not the case with creationism. Creationism has no place in science. At all. There is zero evidence to support it. Not even Intelligent Design has a place in science since there is no evidence to support such a theory (even though I personally think the idea is likely.)

If you want to argue that people are jumping on the bandwagon with both climate change theories and creationist-rejection, then go ahead and provide the scientific evidence for your view.

 

[DarkSun]

[youtube]R370YkYhV0w[/youtube]
YouTube - Christians Fundamentalists Creationists Bush -Bill Hicks

[youtube]i0WebCq3Ts8[/youtube]
YouTube - Evolution Explained - Mrs Garrison

 

[S-word]

This thread is to discuss/debate the age of the earth, various dating methods, and other possible evidence.

The commonly accepted age for the earth in science is approximately 4.5 billion years old (4500000000). It has been argued by various Biblical literalists that the earth is only approximately 6000 years, or sometimes 10 000 years or even sometimes 13 000 years old.

So to start with I would like to give an idea of the scale of the discrepancy that we have here. To say that the earth is only 6000 years old would be equivalent of saying that the moon is only 500 metres away (850 metres for 10 000 years or 1.1 km for 13 000 years). Or it would be the equivalent of saying the distance from New York to Los Angeles is a little over 5 metres (or just under 9 meters or just over 11 metres). So the point I am labouring to make here is that there is a huge discrepancy. And with such a huge discrepancy a few thousand years make little difference either way.

If it bothers you that I am assuming that the 4.5 billion year date is correct for my examples above just reverse it. The scale of the error here is equivalent to thinking that your living room is 4000 kilometres long, or perhaps in thinking that the nearest grocery store is 380 000 km away. Before we even begin to discuss this I want people to have a sense of how big the difference is between the respective viewpoints.

Moving on.

There are several methods used for dating the earth. There is of course radiometric dating, which are actually several different methods.

Carbon-14/Nitrogen-14
Aluminium-26/Magnesium-26
Iodine-129/Xenon-129
Samarium-147/Neodymium-143
Uranian-235/Lead-207
Potassium-40/Argon-40
Uranium-238/Lead-206
Thorium-232/Lead-208
Rhenium-187/Osium-187
Rubidium-87/Strontium

These different radiometric dating methods each cover different ranges of timescales. And when the do overlap they all agree. They all agree and none of the lead to the conclusion of a young earth.

There is also of course dendrology, which is tree ring dating. This method of dating covers much of the same time range as Carbon dating and each can be used to confirm the other. Again we have agreement in dating methods

Then there is Varve Dating which are alternating dark and light sedimentary layers which are use date the earth (also called geochronology). Again this method agrees with radiometric dating and dendrochronology.

Then there is Ice Core dating. This is similar to Varve Dating and tree rings as you can detect the layers of ice caused by variations in temperature. Again this method agrees with the others.

There may be other methods that I have not mentioned here, and I have just given a brief introduction to these. If there are any questions about these or others I hope that I or someone else will be able to answer them. I hope that as this thread moves on we will expand and explain all of these in much greater detail.

I don’t believe there are any scientific dating methods that lead to the conclusion of a young earth. But if I am wrong in this I hope that someone will correct me and we can explore those as well.

You ask the Age of the Earth. It is a little older than the sun which was the last body to be created in our solar system from the condensing cloud of elements, which were divided from the great nubula, which was the residue of a first generation star that imploded and created the Super Black Hole at the centre of our Galaxy.

 

[JustWondering2]

You ask the Age of the Earth. It is a little older than the sun which was the last body to be created in our solar system from the condensing cloud of elements, which were divided from the great nubula, which was the residue of a first generation star that imploded and created the Super Black Hole at the centre of our Galaxy.

Wrong, wrong wrong!! The Sun (our sun) predates the Earth by Millions of years. The cloud of material that condensed into the earth was made to do so by the expansion of material once our Sun started shining. That same expansion caused the formation of all the planets in our solar system. I guess you didn't take science in school or maybe you just failed it! Oh and our sun has nothing to do with the Super Massive Black Hole at the center of the MW galaxy, short of a very very weak gravitation affect.
Further more our sun is NOT a 1st generation star (one created shortly after the big bang) it is at least a 2nd or 3rd generation star. That means hundreds of millions even billions of years older than the big bang. Chemistry and a 1st year college Astronomy class will teach you that the very element your blood and all other red blooded animals is made from (Iron in case you didn't know) cannot be made in our sun and only makes up a very small percentage of the it.
Short answer, the was at least one star near our present solar system location that lived it's life cycle out (100's m to several Billion years) and died as a super nova long before our sun or even our solar system existed. That star's death and the supernova that followed seeded the are of our solar system with all it's heavier elements, including the Iron in your blood and that of all elements in the solar system heavier than H and He.

So do you get it now! Way way more that 6K/10K/100K years old. Use your brain man for what God gave it to you for! People of 2000 years ago (heck upto the early part of the last century) thought that our sun was a big lump of coal! If that had been the case and let's just say that by magic there was enough oxygen in space to oxidize the coal, then creationist idea of a young earth might be true! Since that lump of coal would not "burn" for billions of years and by the way the end would be near because it would be exhausing all it fuel about now. But we wouldn't even know for over 8 minutes even if we were looking at the sun when it happened due to the speed of light.

So before you start spilling out what you think/have been told by your preacher or whatever is scientific fact mentioning galaxy's, BH whatever, at least know something about what you're talking about, do some research or better yet take an Astronomy class (college level and not creationist biased level). It you do so perhap you will be able to comment on Science/Astronomy subjects and at least appear to others that you know what you're talking about!

Worship your bible if you will. I'd prefer to worship God instead.

 

[Jose Fly]

You can't make the comparison between climate change debate and creationism debate. It's not the same thing.

IMO, they're almost identical. I see the exact same behaviors from climate change denialists as I do from evolution denialists.

There are multiple competing theories regarding climate change, most of which have equal scientific evidence supporting them.

There are? What are they and what is their "equal scientific evidence" that supports them?

 

[URAVIP2ME]

Yup. And we're not. For example, Jesus prophesied that He would return during the lifetime of those listening to Him. He was wrong.

Scripture please^.

If Jesus was going to return during the first century, then why would Jesus answer his disciples questions at Matthew 24:3-51 with a composite sign of world events that would first take place on earth on a global scale?
-see also chapter 21 of Luke.

Why would Jesus have to bother giving his disciples the illustration of Matthew 35:14-32; 16:27 if Jesus was to begin ruling at that time?

The 'far away country' of Matt 25:14 is heaven. Jesus would first go away to heaven before ruling. Luke 19:11-15 also stresses the nobleman [Jesus] would go to a far country to receive for himself the kingdom or royal government.
To also show there would be the passage of time, in Jesus illustration of the Wheat and Weeds [tares] of Matthew 13:25 shows how genuine Christians would grow along with false weed-like ones until the time of the harvest time of separation, or the end of this age of badness on earth.
Matt 25:32.

Also, the 'sorrows' of Matt 24:8 connect to Rev 12:12 that Jesus would first clear out the heavens of all badness before he brings an end of all 'Woe' on earth in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1,2.
So before Jesus ushers in Peace on Earth he rids the world of all wickedness [Psalm 92:7; Isaiah 11:4; Rev 19:15]
This comes after the good news of God's kingdom, or royal government, in the hands of Christ is proclaimed world wide, or on a global scale, before the end of all badness comes on earth, and Jesus starts his peaceful one-thousand year ruling over earth.
Matthew 24:14

So this generation living at this time of Matthew [25:32] is the generation of Matthew 24:34.