Do Christians really believe the earth is really 6,000 yrs old?

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Do Christians really believe the earth is 6,000 yrs old?

Evidence point out that it isn’t. The earth is probably 4.55 billion years old.

the age cannot be computed directly from material that is solely from the Earth. There is evidence that energy from the Earth’s accumulation caused the surface to be molten. Further, the processes of erosion and crustal recycling have apparently destroyed all of the earliest surface.

The oldest rocks which have been found so far (on the Earth) date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. Rocks of this age are relatively rare, however rocks that are at least 3.5 billion years in age have been found on North America, Greenland, Australia, Africa, and Asia.

While these values do not compute an age for the Earth, they do establish a lower limit (the Earth must be at least as old as any formation on it). This lower limit is at least concordant with the independently derived figure of 4.55 billion years for the Earth’s actual age.

The most direct means for calculating the Earth’s age is a Pb/Pb isochron age, derived from samples of the Earth and meteorites. This involves measurement of three isotopes of lead (Pb-206, Pb-207, and either Pb-208 or Pb-204). A plot is constructed of Pb-206/Pb-204 versus Pb-207/Pb-204.

If the solar system formed from a common pool of matter, which was uniformly distributed in terms of Pb isotope ratios, then the initial plots for all objects from that pool of matter would fall on a single point.

Over time, the amounts of Pb-206 and Pb-207 will change in some samples, as these isotopes are decay end-products of uranium decay (U-238 decays to Pb-206, and U-235 decays to Pb-207). This causes the data points to separate from each other. The higher the uranium-to-lead ratio of a rock, the more the Pb-206/Pb-204 and Pb-207/Pb-204 values will change with time.

If the source of the solar system was also uniformly distributed with respect to uranium isotope ratios, then the data points will always fall on a single line. And from the slope of the line we can compute the amount of time which has passed since the pool of matter became separated into individual objects. See the Isochron Dating FAQ or Faure (1986, chapter 18) for technical detail.

A young-Earther would object to all of the “assumptions” listed above. However, the test for these assumptions is the plot of the data itself. The actual underlying assumption is that, if those requirements have not been met, there is no reason for the data points to fall on a line.

The resulting plot has data points for each of five meteorites that contain varying levels of uranium, a single data point for all meteorites that do not, and one (solid circle) data point for modern terrestrial sediments. It looks like this:

talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

The idea that the earth is 6,000 years old is like believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Besides, St. Peter did say this, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

In other words, God is outside the context of time and space. he is outside of it. We are in it.

I think the concept of the Creationist science has made Christians in general look stupid and dumb. No body should believe Creationist because it is nothing more than pseudo science.
 
No body knows because no one was there when God made everything.

Science supports the view that the earth is very very old (I don’t know enough to fully endorse the 4.55b year mark, for all I know, it may be older) and that life has evolved from simpler to more complex forms.

That’s the view I tend to endorse but I would never do so dogmatically and really do not get the need some people have to denigrate the beliefs of others. I’ve seen this on the part of creationists as well as evolutionists and I just don’t get it.
 
😉 As far as I know God leaves that for all of people to play with, He Himself doesn’t give a time, may cause He is out of Time and Space as we see it. God is awesome He just keeps saying “Keep looking I have so much for you to discover and in all I AM there for you to find.” And as for the Church don’t think she has said anything dogmatic on the subject, her on scientist just keep on searching along side with others. Christ Peace
 
I believe that God created everything. His 6 creation period and 1 day rest period is just that. The lapse in time may or may have not been 24 hours, we don’ t know. Based on the chronology that exists in my Douay-Rheims the earth is roughly 6000 years old
 
I think the concept of the Creationist science has made Christians in general look stupid and dumb. No body should believe Creationist because it is nothing more than pseudo science.
Doesn’t your church allow one to believe in a young earth? If it does, why do you reject creationists so strongly?
 
Sadly, some folks are in need of perfect answers and thus continue to believe that the earth is young, against all scientific proof to the contrary. Of course, this would mean that God is playing tricks and trying to deliberately confuse and mix people up, in order I presume to separate the true believer from the rest.

The problem with this theory, is that scientific proofs are used to perform other experiments and to develop technology based on its reasoning. And they all work just fine. Those that need to believe in a liberalistic interpretation of the bible are folks who psychologically are in need of direct perfect answers to feel life is secure for them. Life is not like that however as we all know. Faith is not a proveable idea, it is faith. Uncertainty in reality is the life we live. Faith is the life we hope to attain.

Rigid need for surety is nothing but blindness to the obvious. And as I said, the obvious has been proven cross-discipline over and over again. That is why modern scientific endeavors now often employ a lot of cross discipline work. All scientific eventually have to agree. You find in anthropology for instance, geologists, physicists, biologists and many other disciplines all working from the same basic evidence, all helping to round out the conclusions reached. It’s quite thrilling to watch and learn about. We are learning ever so much more about our past because of the interdiciplinary work being done. Such could not be done if it were not for the fact that the basic assumptions are correct, proven by various disciplines in various different ways.
 
I am Catholic (Yes Christian :)) and I currently believe that the Earth is somewhere between 4.5 and 5 billion years old. However, if I could have chosen, I would have chosen both that answer and the answer saying we could all be wrong. Results in science are always, by nature, tentative. I don’t expect any findings that would dramatically overturn the number, but then again, science is particularly good at making the perceived wisdom look bad if you wait long enough :).


Bill
 
Doesn’t your church allow one to believe in a young earth? If it does, why do you reject creationists so strongly?
The Catholic Church unofficial believes in theistic evolution. Theistic evolution is the general opinion that classical religious teachings about God and creation are compatible with some or all of the modern scientific understanding about biological evolution. Theistic evolution is not a theory in the scientific sense, but a particular view about how the science of evolution relates to some religious interpretations. In this way, theistic evolution supporters can be seen as one of the groups who deny the conflict thesis regarding the relationship between religion and science; that is, they hold that religious teachings about creation and scientific theories of evolution need not be contradictory.

I reject the Evangelical Fundumentalist viewpoint of Creationist that believes in the literal intrepretation of the creation account took place at exactly 6 six days. Modern Protestants try to interpret these passage as if they were written today.
 
I believe the earth is young, roughly 6000 years old.

There should be millions of transitional fossils around if evolution was indeed true. But there aren`t.
 
Who knows, God could have brought the earth in a garage sale and refurbished it 6000 years ago. 😛
 
I believe the earth is young, roughly 6000 years old.

There should be millions of transitional fossils around if evolution was indeed true. But there aren`t.
How to you explain other galaxies like the which take millions to billions of light years to get here? This totally refutes the 6,000 yrs old earth…

or that the Milky Way is like 100,000 light years across, which takes light to travel 100,000 light years to cross to the other side.
 
Isn’t there a noted Catholic apologist…I think Robert Sungesis…who believes in geocentricism.

What this is, in addition to the earth being really 6,000 years old, is that the universe revolves around the earth.

If so…pot meet kettle and log meet speck.
 
How to you explain other galaxies like the which take millions to billions of light years to get here? This totally refutes the 6,000 yrs old earth…

or that the Milky Way is like 100,000 light years across, which takes light to travel 100,000 light years to cross to the other side.
Who says the stars are so many light years away from us. I don`t think or am not sure humans can determine how far something out of this world is. Maybe the ligh of the stars are more powerfull then we think.
 
I believe that God created everything. His 6 creation period and 1 day rest period is just that. The lapse in time may or may have not been 24 hours, we don’ t know. Based on the chronology that exists in my Douay-Rheims the earth is roughly 6000 years old
That is not the churchs position
 
Doesn’t your church allow one to believe in a young earth? If it does, why do you reject creationists so strongly?
Read inherit the wind the scopes monkey trial play/movie

The catholic church does not take the position the earth is 6000 years old. First how can you limit God?

My trouble with the literal interpretation of the Bible is it does make God seem to be stupid which is wrong.

why would god give us a brain to figure out things the ability to reason then tell us that the reasoning and intellect are wrong for no reason?
 
Who says the stars are so many light years away from us. I don`t think or am not sure humans can determine how far something out of this world is. Maybe the ligh of the stars are more powerfull then we think.
answer please.
 
answer please.
Both are matters of higher mathamatical calculations.

I am not a mathmatician, however, I recognize the ability of math to provide answers to various questions. God provided us a brain and curiousity, a desire to learn, as humans we use these things.

I am always amazed and was driven away by the protestant desire to undermine intellect and to dismiss those smarter than they are.

Explain to me your educational background and why we cannot calculate the distance from place to place?
 
How about this one…

I believe the earth’s matter is 4 billion years old. However, it is still a good possibility that Adam and Eve were here about 6,000 years ago. I accept the theory of evolution for animals, but humanity is a young species. Genesis implies that Adam was created as a fully-grown adult man, and Eve was also created as a woman, meant to be a partner for Adam from the beginning. Assume that women in the first millennium were averaging a child once a year (just like the rest of nature) and the math adds up as to how the earth populated so quickly. Remember, for most of history, there were less than 1 billion people total with the spike only in the last 1,000 years.

What do you think?😉
 
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