Old Earth vs. Young Earth

[ngill09]

By the early universe, I mean the universe right after the Big Bang; the very beginning of time and space.

As to your dilemmas, I already addressed the issue of the word “water” in the beginning of Genesis. The issue of plants vs. sun and stars is a complex one that I cannot explain adequately, I would have to refer you to Schroeder’s book “The Science of God” for an in-depth treatment of that topic. It has to do with the very earliest plant life, i.e. algae, emerging prior to the clearing of Earth’s atmosphere. It sounds like complete hooey when I say it, but he gives a much more cogent explanation with reference to both science and ancient Biblical commentary.

As to his calculation, I invite you to read (and reread if necessary) the article I linked previously. It took me a few reads to fully grasp what he was saying, but once you get it, you can check the math for yourself and it works out. The error I was making, and which I suspect from your phrasing you may be making to, is to think about this measurement as being progressive in perspective. What I mean to say is that, just as we now measure past time from a fixed perspective looking back into the past, Genesis 1 (according to both ancient Jewish and Christian source) measures time from a fixed perspective looking forward from the beginning of the universe. To borrow Dr. Schroeder’s example, if someone were to stand at that point in time/space and send a signal to someone in the present every second, we would only receive a signal every 1,000,000,000,000 seconds. Coupled with the fact that “each time the universe doubles in size, the perception of time halves as we project that time back toward the beginning of the universe,” the calculations all add up.

What I mean to say when I say his calculation is dishonest is that he appears to be doing a much more sophisticated version of the argument that “If we suppose the population rate doubles every 150 years, and if we suppose that there were 8 people 4,000 years ago, that gives us 7 billion today!” In short, he picked the basis for counting time arbitrarily so that it would come out to 6 days, and in order to do so he also has to sort of fudge the numbers on our geological history.

 

[prodigalson2011]

What I mean to say when I say his calculation is dishonest is that he appears to be doing a much more sophisticated version of the argument that “If we suppose the population rate doubles every 150 years, and if we suppose that there were 8 people 4,000 years ago, that gives us 7 billion today!” In short, he picked the basis for counting time arbitrarily so that it would come out to 6 days, and in order to do so he also has to sort of fudge the numbers on our geological history.

In what way was his choice arbitrary? He doesn’t suppose anything. The numbers he uses are all culled from mainstream physics.

Just a second, I’m editing this post. I’ll attempt to reproduce the math.

 

[Aloysium]

**:twocents:

If mankind exists on earth in 2000 years, our current scientific ideas about the universe will be as quaint to them, as that of a vault of water above, is to people today.
Whatever mental image, which imho is wrong and right at the same time, we have of what exists and how it all came to be, the important thing is that it was all created by Him.

 

[prodigalson2011]

I don’t have his original equations on hand, so all I have to work with this is the seconds-to-seconds ratio, so my exposition will be a bit more longwinded (and imprecise) than his.

Ok, so we start with 15 billion years. We’ll multiply that by 356 to get the number of days in those 15 billion years:

15,000,000,000 x 356 = 5,340,000,000,000 days

Now we’ll multiply those days by 86,400, which is the number of seconds in a single day.

5,340,000,000,000 x 86,400 = 461,376,000,000,000,000

Now we’ll divide that by 1,000,000,000,000 to get our equivalent time as measured from “the beginning.”

461,376,000,000,000,000 / 1,000,000,000,000 = 461,376

Now we’ll divide 461,376 seconds by 86,400 seconds to arrive at our number of days as viewed from the beginning of time:

461,376 / 86,400 = 5.34

As Dr. Schroeder noted, ancient commentaries state that this “cosmic calendar” stops with the creation of Adam, which occurs midway through the completion of the 6th day (or roughly 5 and a half days.)

 

[ngill09]

I don’t have his original equations on hand, so all I have to work with this is the seconds-to-seconds ratio, so my exposition will be a bit more longwinded (and imprecise) than his.

Ok, so we start with 15 billion years. We’ll multiply that by 356 to get the number of days in those 15 billion years:

15,000,000,000 x 356 = 5,340,000,000,000 days

Now we’ll multiply those days by 86,400, which is the number of seconds in a single day.

5,340,000,000,000 x 86,400 = 461,376,000,000,000,000

Now we’ll divide that by 1,000,000,000,000 to get our equivalent time as measured from “the beginning.”

461,376,000,000,000,000 / 1,000,000,000,000 = 461,376

Now we’ll divide 461,376 seconds by 86,400 seconds to arrive at our number of days as viewed from the beginning of time:

461,376 / 86,400 = 5.34

As Dr. Schroeder noted, ancient commentaries state that this “cosmic calendar” stops with the creation of Adam, which occurs midway through the completion of the 6th day (or roughly 5 and a half days.)

It’s the “1,000,000,000,000” that seems arbitrary and very rounded.

 

[prodigalson2011]

It’s the “1,000,000,000,000” that seems arbitrary and very rounded.

But it’s not. That’s the consensus of modern physics:

What’s exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the “view of time” from the beginning of stable matter, the threshold energy of protons and neutrons (their nucleosynthesis), relative to the “view of time” today. It’s not science fiction any longer. A dozen physics textbooks all bring the same number. The general relationship between nucleosynthesis, that time near the beginning at the threshold energy of protons and neutrons when matter formed, and time today is a million million. That’s a 1 with 12 zeros after it. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says “I’m sending you a pulse every second,” would we see a pulse every second? No. We’d see it every million million seconds. Because that’s the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe.

 

[ngill09]

But it’s not. That’s consensus of modern physics:

What’s exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the “view of time” from the beginning of stable matter, the threshold energy of protons and neutrons (their nucleosynthesis), relative to the “view of time” today. It’s not science fiction any longer. A dozen physics textbooks all bring the same number. The general relationship between nucleosynthesis, that time near the beginning at the threshold energy of protons and neutrons when matter formed, and time today is a million million. That’s a 1 with 12 zeros after it. So when a view from the beginning looking forward says “I’m sending you a pulse every second,” would we see a pulse every second? No. We’d see it every million million seconds. Because that’s the stretching effect of the expansion of the universe.

Right, but that seems to be only an indication of the magnitude of things. It’s quite another to take that as an actual ratio. For instance, if I just change it to 1.2 trillion, the final answer goes down to 4.45 days.

 

[Ion]

Right, but that seems to be only an indication of the magnitude of things. It’s quite another to take that as an actual ratio. For instance, if I just change it to 1.2 trillion, the final answer goes down to 4.45 days.

After all, you are not sure about the completness of the current scientific findings…
Maybe only when is convenient?

 

[ngill09]

After all, you are not sure about the completness of the current scientific findings…
Maybe only when is convenient?

The question isn’t whether this is a scientifically valid concept - I think that it’s valid. The problem is with whether “a second at the beginning is like a trillion seconds today” is an exact ratio or a general relationship.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Right, but that seems to be only an indication of the magnitude of things. It’s quite another to take that as an actual ratio. For instance, if I just change it to 1.2 trillion, the final answer goes down to 4.45 days.

I do not know the margin of error on that particular figure, but I doubt it’s as much as 200 million. Nevertheless, you must admit the congruence of the 2 is pretty unlikely.

And, as I indicated, my formulation was a very primitive one and is not the same as what Dr. Schroeder uses. His is much more sophisticated and goes on to encompass all the epoch/day divisions, etc. and culminates in a comparison of cosmological history, divided into its respective “days” (starting from Day One, they are, respectively, in billions of years: 7.1; 3.6; 1.8; 0.89; 0.45; 0.23.) with the days of Genesis. The agreement between the scientific and Scriptural accounts is uncanny.

 

[bsroufek]

Psalm 31:15 - My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.

Time may pass differently for each of us, but I believe that the First Day of Creation was in fact a day as we all know it, as were the other Six Days. We all know what a day is. If it’s not a day, it would be called something else.

Moses got it right.

 

[bsroufek]

Originally Posted by ngill09
The idea that the earth is 6,000 years old conflicts with a concordance of data which are the foundation for the fundamental theories of physics, geology, biology, astronomy, archeology, paleontology, meteorology, genetics, and cosmology. Every field of science that touches upon or implies something about the age of Earth and the universe indicates that the age is on the scale of billions of years, not thousands. In order to hold that the universe is 6,000 years old, you must assume that the entire project of science is fundamentally and completely flawed.

That is why Young-earth Creationism is not taken seriously.

Truth is not flawed, but present scientific (science is a tool/method) theory is flawed. A couple of guys GUESSED from radiation that the universe is billions of years old, now everybody else thinks the same with their own little twists to it.

 

[Della]

Psalm 31:15 - My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.

Time may pass differently for each of us, but I believe that the First Day of Creation was in fact a day as we all know it, as were the other Six Days. We all know what a day is. If it’s not a day, it would be called something else.

Moses got it right.

What does the Hebrew word for “day” mean in Genesis? Here’s a paragraph on the topic you may find useful from this website: bibleintegrity.org/:

The Bible doesn’t say exactly when the universe was created. But, Psalm 90:2-4 directly refers to the creation period where God “formed the earth” and, in that context, says that a day could be any amount of time to God (“a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday”). God was obviously the only observer of creation. The word “day” (Hebrew yom) can mean a period of time or epoch, and “evening and the morning” (Hebrew ereb and boqer), found in Genesis 1, can be plural (e.g. Daniel 8:14 & 26) rather than singular, enabling the creation period to be billions of evenings and mornings in six epochs. Arguments that ‘“yom” plus a number’ are always interpreted to mean 24 hour days is a nice statistic but there is no rule preventing yom from being legitimately interpreted as an indeterminate period of time or epoch. And, as previously explained in Psalm 90:2-4, days are defined as long periods of time in the context of creation. In addition, in Genesis 2:4, yom is interpreted to mean the whole six days of creation. Thus, billions of evenings and mornings in each of 6 epochs/days is a legitimate interpretation.

 

[bsroufek]

What does the Hebrew word for “day” mean in Genesis? Here’s a paragraph on the topic you may find useful from this website: bibleintegrity.org/:

as regarding what a day means in Genesis, we read " Thus evening came, and morning followed–the first day.". A day is a day in Genesis, evening and morning. It’s not a reinterpretation or other meaning of the Hebrew word “yom”.

 

[snarflemike]

Truth is not flawed, but present scientific (science is a tool/method) theory is flawed. A couple of guys GUESSED from radiation that the universe is billions of years old, now everybody else thinks the same with their own little twists to it.

I don’t know how many different forms of evidence point to the age of the universe, and of the earth, as being in the billions of years, but I bet it’s in the dozens.

 

[bsroufek]

I don’t know how many different forms of evidence point to the age of the universe, and of the earth, as being in the billions of years, but I bet it’s in the dozens.

Truth is not a democracy. Jesus said that many follow the road to Hell while few find the road to life.

As far as 12-14 billion years in the universe, they say our own star will burn out in something like 4 billion years. In 12-14 billion years, most of the stars would have burnt out by now.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Truth is not flawed, but present scientific (science is a tool/method) theory is flawed. A couple of guys GUESSED from radiation that the universe is billions of years old, now everybody else thinks the same with their own little twists to it.

Yep. Scientists just guess about everything. Space travel? Nuclear energy? Radio waves? Laser surgery? Robotics? Those were all just lucky guesses.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

The Bible contains much metaphor and parable - tools which Jesus himself used quite liberally - oh, that everyone had the ‘discernment’ to understand the difference and significance between these as against literality - all forms can contain ‘TRUTHS’, but all require DISCERNMENT.

 

[aux1]

Now we’ll multiply those days by 86,400, which is the number of seconds in a single day.

Anachronism. The concept of second as a time unit was first introduced in Arabia in 1000AD.

 

[prodigalson2011]

Psalm 31:15 - My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.

Time may pass differently for each of us, but I believe that the First Day of Creation was in fact a day as we all know it, as were the other Six Days. We all know what a day is. If it’s not a day, it would be called something else.

Moses got it right.

I see you are Catholic, so how do you feel about the fact that neither the Church nor the ancient Jews EVER taught that Genesis must be interpreted literally?

To clarify, they’ve never said that it’s impossible that it could be literally true, but theologians from St. Augustine to Pope Benedict XVI have all left it open for interpretation.