Can science prove the world is over 4 billion yrs. old?

[Robert_Sock]

lol…if you say so…



I wonder who made the cave paintings in Chauvet, France 35000 years ago…

Laugh at me if you must, but how can you laugh at the teachings of one of the world’s greatest religions?

 

[Lui]

Laugh at me if you must, but how can you laugh at the teachings of one of the world’s greatest religions?

Which religion do you mean? The Catholic Church doesn’t teach what you claim.
Anyway, this thread is about the age of the earth and not about how old you think the human species is but if you think that humans are only 5771 years old, how do you explain the cave paintings in France and else where?

 

[Julia_Mae]

chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2901/404/1/jewish/How-Old-is-the-Universe.htm

Here’s an interesting read from Chabad, which states the age of the universe.

Well, this is something private written by a Jew, this is not something that states the official position of the Jewish religion. You said something was believed “in Judasim.” That’s like some Catholic being a literalist and then saying “as believed in Catholicism.”

Anyway, even if every Rabbi on earth stood up and said they believed the earth was less than 6000 years old, or that humankind was, it wouldn’t change any facts. We have pottery twice as old as that. Although, we are off-topic, technically.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Well, this is something private written by a Jew, this is not something that states the official position of the Jewish religion. You said something was believed “in Judasim.” That’s like some Catholic being a literalist and then saying “as believed in Catholicism.”

Anyway, even if every Rabbi on earth stood up and said they believed the earth was less than 6000 years old, or that humankind was, it wouldn’t change any facts. We have pottery twice as old as that. Although, we are off-topic, technically.

It’s the official view of Chabad and the other Orthodox and Conservative branches of Judaism. Chabad would not allow anything to be published on their Web site that went against their teachings.

BTW: The article I cited is on topic because it discusses the difficulty of measuring the age of the Earth!

 

[buffalo]

The vault of the sky is interesting. It contains the stars (Gen 1:14-18) and beyond it is water (1:6-7). Apparently many ancient cultures perceived the sky as a solid canopy. They might be seriously unnerved by limitless space, perhaps our natural predisposition is to think of the sky as a dome. Small children often only color in the sky at the top of their paintings, and we still look upwards to the heavens (Do you sense the Creator, world? Seek Him beyond the starry canopy! Beyond the stars must He dwell. - Schiller, as per Beethoven’s 9th).

5 US cents are only worth 3.5 European cents.

It doesn’t matter what other ancient cultures thought. It is what the Hebrews who preserved the tablets thought.

 

[buffalo]

I’m pretty sure that Catholics aren’t supposed to take everything in the Bible literally and that the Catholic Church does not tell us to. I was talking about Fundamentalists not Catholics.
If you’re saying that the Church tells us to take the whole Bible literally, please post a link where it says so.

Where did I say that?

But, this is what the Catechism teaches:

III. THE HOLY SPIRIT, INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE
109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.75
110 In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."76
111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. "Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written."77
The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.78
112 1. Be especially attentive “to the content and unity of the whole Scripture”. Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover.79

The phrase “heart of Christ” can refer to Sacred Scripture, which makes known his heart, closed before the Passion, as the Scripture was obscure. But the Scripture has been opened since the Passion; since those who from then on have understood it, consider and discern in what way the prophecies must be interpreted.80
113 2. Read the Scripture within “the living Tradition of the whole Church”. According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church"81).
114 3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith.82 By “analogy of faith” we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.
The senses of Scripture
115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two *senses *of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83
117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.84
2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85
3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86

118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses: The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.87 119 "It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgment. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God."88

But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.89

 

[buffalo]

Scientists do not assume when they can check something.

• Radioactive decay rates have been checked. They have remained constant for the last 150,000 years at least. Just as well because if rates in the recent past were at the kind of values Young Earthers wanted then the Earth would still be molten rock - radioactive decay releases heat and fast decay releases heat faster.
• The Earth’s magnetic field has been checked. It is known not to be constant, but to change in various ways, some regular, some not. The entire magnetic field even reverses on occasions. No scientific dating method assumes either a static, or uniformly changing, magnetic field.
• The speed of light has been checked. It is know to have been constant for the last ten billion years.

There are no assumptions in the points you mention. They have all been checked experimentally.

Please do not believe everything you read on creationist websites. They have an agenda and they lie. They also drag in irrelevancies. The cause of the Big Bang is not relevant to the age of the Earth, any more that the cause of God is relevant to the date of creation.

rossum

\

Except now we know that decay rates vary according to what the sun is doing.

 

[Lui]

Where did I say that?

I assumed that because I specifically asked “what I don’t get is WHY they want to take the Bible literally”.
With they I was referring to Fundamentalists. I didn’t ask how Catholics should read the Bible but your answer to my specific question was:

Catholics are to understand the Bible as to what the author intended to convey.

…which made me assume that you meant that Catholics should take everything in the Bible literally, like Fundamentalists do.

 

[Robert_Sock]

It’s the official view of Chabad and the other Orthodox and Conservative branches of Judaism. Chabad would not allow anything to be published on their Web site that went against their teachings.

BTW: The article I cited is on topic because it discusses the difficulty of measuring the age of the Earth!

I should say that I’m pretty sure, but not 100%, about the Conservative branch of Judaism.

 

[buffalo]

I assumed that because I specifically asked “what I don’t get is WHY they want to take the Bible literally”.
With they I was taking about Fundamentalists. I didn’t ask how Catholics should read the Bible but you answer to my specific question was:

…which made me assume that you meant that Catholics should take everything in the Bible literally, like Fundamentalists do.

Catholics do take the bible literally not literalistically.

A friend of mine said that his church takes the Bible literally, but that the Catholic Church doesn’t…is that true?
Actually, there is no truth to that, whatsoever. Catholics interpret the Bible in a “literal” sense, while many fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and others interpret the Bible in a literalist sense. The “literal” meaning of a passage of Scripture is the meaning that the author of that passage of Scripture intended to convey. The “literalist” interpretation of a passage of Scripture is: “that’s what it says, that’s what it means.”
Let me give you an example to illustrate the difference. If you were to read a passage in a book that said it was “raining cats and dogs outside”, how would you interpret that? As Americans, in the 21st Century, you would know that the author was intending to convey the idea that it was raining pretty doggone hard outside. That would be the “literal” interpretation…the interpretation the author intended to convey. On the other hand, what if you made a “literalist” interpretation of the phrase, “it’s raining cats and dogs”?
The “literalist” interpretation would be that, were you to walk outside, you would actually see cats and dogs falling from the sky like rain. No taking into account the popularly accepted meaning of this phrase. No taking into account the author’s intentions. The words say it was raining cats and dogs, so, by golly, it was raining cats and dogs! That is the literalist, or fundamentalist, way of interpretation.
If someone 2000 years in the future picked up that same book and read, “It was raining cats and dogs outside,” in order to properly understand that passage in the book, they would need a “literal” interpretation, not a “literalist” interpretation. Now, think about that in the context of interpreting the Bible 2000-3000 years after it was written.
Literal, or Catholic, interpretation vs. literalist, or fundamentalist, interpretation.

 

[buffalo]

rossum - your comments on the John Lennox lecture?

 

[Lui]

Catholics do take the bible literally not literalistically.

A friend of mine said that his church takes the Bible literally, but that the Catholic Church doesn’t…is that true?
Actually, there is no truth to that, whatsoever. Catholics interpret the Bible in a “literal” sense, while many fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and others interpret the Bible in a literalist sense. The “literal” meaning of a passage of Scripture is the meaning that the author of that passage of Scripture intended to convey. The “literalist” interpretation of a passage of Scripture is: “that’s what it says, that’s what it means.”
Let me give you an example to illustrate the difference. If you were to read a passage in a book that said it was “raining cats and dogs outside”, how would you interpret that? As Americans, in the 21st Century, you would know that the author was intending to convey the idea that it was raining pretty doggone hard outside. That would be the “literal” interpretation…the interpretation the author intended to convey. On the other hand, what if you made a “literalist” interpretation of the phrase, “it’s raining cats and dogs”?
The “literalist” interpretation would be that, were you to walk outside, you would actually see cats and dogs falling from the sky like rain. No taking into account the popularly accepted meaning of this phrase. No taking into account the author’s intentions. The words say it was raining cats and dogs, so, by golly, it was raining cats and dogs! That is the literalist, or fundamentalist, way of interpretation.
If someone 2000 years in the future picked up that same book and read, “It was raining cats and dogs outside,” in order to properly understand that passage in the book, they would need a “literal” interpretation, not a “literalist” interpretation. Now, think about that in the context of interpreting the Bible 2000-3000 years after it was written.
Literal, or Catholic, interpretation vs. literalist, or fundamentalist, interpretation.

Yes, I’ve read that before and I’ve seen it as a video. I mean literalistically(a word that I think doesn’t really exist) when I say literally. It would just be unclear without the explanation in this text.
In other words, we should NOT take everything word for word as it is written in the Bible. If someone says it is raining cats and dogs(as mentioned), they don’t literally mean that cats and dogs are falling from the sky. The same goes with a lot of things in the Bible. We are supposed to understand what a certain story in the Bible is trying to tell us, and NOT take everything word for word. youtube.com/watch?v=Wd8SGvXQv3k&playnext=1&list=PL220698F5B9E25F52

Again, my question was why Fundamentalists want to take everything literalistically?

 

[buffalo]

Yes, I’ve read that before and I’ve seen it as a video. I mean literalistically(a word that I think doesn’t really exist) when I say literally. It would just be unclear without the explanation in this text.
In other words, we should NOT take everything word for word as it is written in The Bible. If someone says it is raining cats and dogs(as mentioned), they don’t literally mean that cats and dogs are falling from the sky. The same goes with a lot of things in the Bible. We are supposed to understand what a certain story in the Bible is trying to tell us, and NOT take everything word for word. youtube.com/watch?v=Wd8SGvXQv3k&playnext=1&list=PL220698F5B9E25F52

Again, my question was why Fundamentalists want to take everything literalistically?

Because they believe in Sola Scriptura and have no interpretive authority.

 

[Lui]

Because they believe in Sola Scriptura and have no interpretive authority.

But in that way, you would not “get” what the Bible/God is telling you. Let’s take the example of cats and dogs again. If someone told me that it is raining cats and dogs and I would actually think cats and dogs are falling from the sky, then I would understand a totally different story that was intended.
I believe this mistake is also made with the Bible. Instead of trying to prove that the earth isn’t 4.5 billion years old but rather 6000 years old and God created the world in 6 days, we should rather try to understand what the book of Genesis is telling us and not if every word happened just like it is written.
Noah’s ark is another example. Instead of trying to prove that Noah actually built an ark with all animal species on earth on board(which is basically impossible) we should rather try to understand the message of the story.

 

[buffalo]

But in that way, you would not “get” what the Bible/God is telling you. Let’s take the example of cats and dogs again. If someone told me that it is raining cats and dogs and I would actually think cats and dogs are falling from the sky, then I would understand a totally different story that was intended.
I believe this mistake is also made with the Bible. Instead of trying to prove that the earth isn’t 4.5 billion years old but rather 6000 years old and God created the world in 6 days, we should rather try to understand what the book of Genesis is telling us and not if every word happened just like it is written.

Should we ignore the constant teaching and understanding of the Church, as if the Bible just fell from the sky and we are reading it for the first time?

 

[Lui]

Should we ignore the constant teaching and understanding of the Church, as if the Bible just fell from the sky and we are reading it for the first time?

Aren’t you contradicting what you posted before? We as Catholics should read the Bible as what it is trying to teach us and not take it word for word, a “literalist” interpretation, as Fundamentalists do.

Catholics interpret the Bible in a “literal” sense, while many fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and others interpret the Bible in a literalist sense. **The “literal” meaning of a passage of Scripture is the meaning that the author of that passage of Scripture intended to convey.**The “literalist” interpretation of a passage of Scripture is: “that’s what it says, that’s what it means.”
Let me give you an example to illustrate the difference. If you were to read a passage in a book that said it was “raining cats and dogs outside”, how would you interpret that? As Americans, in the 21st Century, you would know that the author was intending to convey the idea that it was raining pretty doggone hard outside. That would be the “literal” interpretation…the interpretation the author intended to convey. On the other hand, what if you made a “literalist” interpretation of the phrase, “it’s raining cats and dogs”?
The “literalist” interpretation would be that, were you to walk outside, you would actually see cats and dogs falling from the sky like rain. No taking into account the popularly accepted meaning of this phrase. No taking into account the author’s intentions. The words say it was raining cats and dogs, so, by golly, it was raining cats and dogs!

 

[buffalo]

Aren’t you contradicting what you posted before? We as Catholics should read the Bible as what it is trying to teach us and not take it word for word, a “literalist” interpretation, as Fundamentalists do.

How so? - we are to read it as to what the author was trying to convey. I made no contradiction.

Reread the Catechism reference.

 

[Lui]

How so? - we are to read it as to what the author was trying to convey. I made no contradiction.

That’s what I said too and we should NOT read the Bible like Fundamentalists do, who take word for word as actual fact.
I don’t get why you wrote this:

Should we ignore the constant teaching and understanding of the Church, as if the Bible just fell from the sky and we are reading it for the first time?

My answer: no, we’re supposed to read the Bible as to what the author was trying to convey.

 

[rossum]

Except now we know that decay rates vary according to what the sun is doing.

Reference please.

I am aware that rates of electron capture can be affected by external conditions, but electron capture rates are not used to date rocks. Does your source refer to something other than electron capture?

rossum

 

[Dan_Daly]

Radioactive decay rates have been checked. They have remained constant for the last 150,000 years at least.

The process of “checking” would obviously include making some assumptions, unless you are going to argue that people have been directly observing and recording radioactive decay rates for the past 150,000 years.

Pax.