Old Earth vs. Young Earth

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Iron_Donkey said:
Catholics are free to believe either. I myself think the old Earth makes much more sense, however Catholicism doesn’t require that we hold either position.
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No, it does not, therefore, the Church does not answer the question. In those cases we are to look to other resources. Those other resources in this case are the sciences, and they tell us the Earth is billions of years old. That settles the debate for me.
 
bsroufek said:
No, it seems to me that while I back the Creation stories and therefore believe, from the geneological ages, that the Earth is about 6000 years old, some people believe in the Big Bang, which is not a Creation story, but an accident, a denial of God’s Creation.
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The Big Bang theory was developed by a Catholic priest and has never been denied by the Church. It can be used by some to try and argue against the existence of God, but frankly their logic completely falls apart. The theory when used logically does not deny God, but merely reveals the method He used for the creation of the universe.
 
bsroufek said:
I am a Computer Scientist myself. I believe Science is a useful tool for man, but I believe that, when given a Creation Story, why deny it with an accidental explosion?

The Big Bang would have resulted in some big pieces and some small pieces, like any explosion. Since this is not the case, but we have billions and billions of evenly sized particles (Stars), the Big Bang Theory is a poor theory in my opinion.
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Have you every studied astronomy, because if you have, you would realize that almost nothing in the universe is the same size and shape other than the particles of light penetrating our atmosphere that we perceive as stars.
 
bsroufek said:
I also read this man’s work on the age of the universe. He basically says, “The Bible says it took Six Days for Creation. Scientists say it took 14 billlion years. So, each day in Creation was 14 billion/7 years.” He tries to claim that both the Bible and the Big Bang Theory are correct, except that his idea that a day can be understood to mean billions of years is too much of a stretch. Nonsense!
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So the Fathers of our faith were speaking nonsense when they said that a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day to God?
 
ngill09 said:
Bunnies and dinosaurs in the same geological strata.
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rabbits were already there 53 million years ago.
rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1639/1203.short

“It remains unclear why certain mammals, turtles and other animals survived the K-T extinction event 65 million years ago].”

so there are mammals and dinosaurs in the same geological strata.

what is exceptionally interesting is why all the dinos died suddenly but not birds, small mammals, turtles and other water loving creatures.
i bet there is a reason for the selective extinction and maybe the answer can be seen in how the plants fared. which plants became extinct suddenly and which survived and what were their respective and particular habitats.
 
bsroufek said:
The reason we have the Sabbath is that God rested on the Seventh Day from His Six Days of Creation. You can read this yourself.

Everything I read indicates to me that the Six Days were six Earth days, not billions of years.
Do you believe that Moses just wrote a story that is not true?
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Moses wrote a story that reveals truth. This is completely different from writing a completely accurate historical narrative.
 
bsroufek said:
I think your explanation of two synchronized clocks not registering the same passage of time because they are on the other side of the universe is completely false. They would register the same time.
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And this knowledge is based on what? Do you have a Ph.D in physics? Have you spent your life studying the work of those that came before in the field and conducting experiments to expand your own knowledge?
 
bsroufek said:
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.
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They have, but because light travels at a fixed speed, we are only seeing the light from them now. If we could actually travel to some of the stars that we can see in the night sky, we would find in many cases that they are no longer there.
 
Paddy_Walker said:
rabbits were already there 53 million years ago.
rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1639/1203.short

“It remains unclear why certain mammals, turtles and other animals survived the K-T extinction event 65 million years ago].”

so there are mammals and dinosaurs in the same geological strata.

what is exceptionally interesting is why all the dinos died suddenly but not birds, small mammals, turtles and other water loving creatures.
i bet there is a reason for the selective extinction and maybe the answer can be seen in how the plants fared. which plants became extinct suddenly and which survived and what were their respective and particular habitats.
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Not ancient mammals, modern bunnies. Or better yet, humans. The fact that your source cites that the oldest known lagomorph is 53 million years old, while dinosaurs (as people tend to think of them) went extinct over 60 million years ago.

In any case, citing 53 million year old bunnies doesn’t really help the case that the Earth is less than 10 thousand years old.
 
bsroufek said:
A couple of times, now, I have mentioned that the ages of Adam and his sons down to Joseph son of Israel are stated in Genesis, even how old they were when they had their
first son. This derives a history of about 6000 years.

No one has yet commented on these ages in lineage in Genesis so far. Do you believe they
were “invented” or do you believe they are factual?
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I do not know. I have no way of knowing. But if they are factual they only list ages since the fall. We have no idea how long the Earth, universe, Adam, Eve, etc existed pre-fall.
 
The arguments that I am seeing on this thread from some of the young-Earthers, are one of the reasons that I am so afraid to see the results of continually expanding homeschooling. :eek:
 
CatholicGeek1 said:
No, it does not, therefore, the Church does not answer the question. In those cases we are to look to other resources. Those other resources in this case are the sciences, and they tell us the Earth is billions of years old. That settles the debate for me.
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Except that science has been wrong before.
 
ngill09 said:
Not ancient mammals, modern bunnies. Or better yet, humans. The fact that your source cites that the oldest known lagomorph is 53 million years old, while dinosaurs (as people tend to think of them) went extinct over 60 million years ago.

In any case, citing 53 million year old bunnies doesn’t really help the case that the Earth is less than 10 thousand years old.
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i’m not really talking about a 10,000 year old earth, just a younger earth, by how much does not matter. in fact it would be better not to put an age on the earth in advance. i’m saying that as thinking creatures we can test an idea without prejudice. imagine the earth is young, visualize something which you would expect to see in that case, then go look for it.
the kt extinction is kinda like that. if you imagine one scenario in which half the plants died out suddenly or even immediately you could go look for specific types of evidence. and the result of that might be that an entire system which was thought to be slow was in fact fast.
but if prejudice prevents even thinking then we cannot learn anything.
Not ancient mammals, modern bunnies. Or better yet, humans. The fact that your source cites that the oldest known lagomorph is 53 million years old, while dinosaurs (as people tend to think of them) went extinct over 60 million years ago.
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you see, the thing is, the lagomorph http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...pg/220px-Oryctolagus_cuniculus_Tasmania_2.jpg
was already developed 53 million years ago, or what we call 53 million years ago, but these are just the first bones discovered. the rabbit must have had millions of years before that to evolve.
and then of course the dinosaurs would have been alive with the rabbit if it wasn’t for an unexplainable extinction event which could kill all the dinosaurs all around the world but could not kill the rabbits.
 
CatholicGeek1 said:
No, it does not, therefore, the Church does not answer the question. In those cases we are to look to other resources. Those other resources in this case are the sciences, and they tell us the Earth is billions of years old. That settles the debate for me.
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"The Time Question

Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago."

Source: Catholic Answers tract

Peace,
Ed
 
pocohombre said:
No hold on there partner. I get your point but homescooling is statistically (therefore scientifically?) given to better results.
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Which results? Do you mean test results or overall knowledge? Even if I were to grant that homschooling teaches students to think better, have more life skills, or gain more knowldge (which i am not convinced it does) I still wouldn’t recommend it. The social experience gained from regular schooling is important. I have 2 friends who were homeschooled and their social skills are lacking, simply because they weren’t around as mant kids their age.
 
pocohombre said:
Except that science has been wrong before.
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“Science” can’t be wrong. It isn’t a thinking entity. Scientists can however, be mistaken. But as knowledge of the universe expands, they correct their mistakes. Being wrong in the past is no reason to decide that scientists aren’t worth listening too.
 
Gricken said:
Which results? Do you mean test results or overall knowledge? Even if I were to grant that homschooling teaches students to think better, have more life skills, or gain more knowldge (which i am not convinced it does) I still wouldn’t recommend it. The social experience gained from regular schooling is important. I have 2 friends who were homeschooled and their social skills are lacking, simply because they weren’t around as mant kids their age.
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Personally, I could have forgone the public school experience because the social climate
was rather brutal in some cases.
 
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