The earth is only 6000 years old.

[Justin_Mee]

In my past life as a protestant, the preacher always said that the earth is only 6000 years old and only heathens believed otherwise. I just could not buy into that and my questions went unanswered. It is one in a long, long line of teachings that led me to the true Church. Can anyone explain how this can be taught with a straight face. The nearest answer I received was that when God made the earth, He made the triobites and cephalopods already formed in the rocks. So, such evidence means nothing.

 

[Young_Thinker]

While I certainly would not say that the earth is that young, science can only study appearances in the physical world. One accepts evolution, one does not believe in it, as I have been told by a professor in the sciences.

 

[SnakeMauler]

In my past life as a protestant, the preacher always said that the earth is only 6000 years old and only heathens believed otherwise. I just could not buy into that and my questions went unanswered. It is one in a long, long line of teachings that led me to the true Church. Can anyone explain how this can be taught with a straight face. The nearest answer I received was that when God made the earth, He made the triobites and cephalopods already formed in the rocks. So, such evidence means nothing.

Key word; “past life” as a Protestant. That’s why you’re a Catholic now, because you have priests who study for at least 5 years to talk to and an educated Church hierarchy to answer your questions.

 

[Dokimas]

In my past life as a protestant, the preacher always said that the earth is only 6000 years old and only heathens believed otherwise. I just could not buy into that and my questions went unanswered. It is one in a long, long line of teachings that led me to the true Church. Can anyone explain how this can be taught with a straight face. The nearest answer I received was that when God made the earth, He made the triobites and cephalopods already formed in the rocks. So, such evidence means nothing.

Lots of protestants believe in millions and billions of yrs.​

I believe the Bible is correct and that the earth is less than 10,000 yrs old. I also think good science points to a ‘young earth’.

 

[IowaJay]

Key word; “past life” as a Protestant. That’s why you’re a Catholic now, because you have priests who study for at least 5 years to talk to and an educated Church hierarchy to answer your questions.

The standard degree for ordination in mainline Protestant churches (Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, et.) is the Master of Divinity, which takes 3-4 years on top of a 4 year bachelor degree. Many Protestant pastors have continuing education beyond that, including D.Min. and PhD degrees.

 

[twinc]

In my past life as a protestant, the preacher always said that the earth is only 6000 years old and only heathens believed otherwise. I just could not buy into that and my questions went unanswered. It is one in a long, long line of teachings that led me to the true Church. Can anyone explain how this can be taught with a straight face. The nearest answer I received was that when God made the earth, He made the triobites and cephalopods already formed in the rocks. So, such evidence means nothing.

yes,indeed,we have a young earth - the rocks are not as old as some would have us accept in an attempt to prove that the inerrant word of God is not inerrant and man knows better than his creator - the rock layers were not formed one layer on top of the preceding layer as commonly supposed but sideways and all life appeared suddenly and at the same time caused by the biologists’ big bang known as the cambrian explosion.Most dating methods prove a young earth and those that say otherwise are fla\wed,it seems by millions or billions of years - twinc

 

[Bob_Crowley]

In my past life as a protestant, the preacher always said that the earth is only 6000 years old and only heathens believed otherwise. I just could not buy into that and my questions went unanswered. It is one in a long, long line of teachings that led me to the true Church. Can anyone explain how this can be taught with a straight face. The nearest answer I received was that when God made the earth, He made the triobites and cephalopods already formed in the rocks. So, such evidence means nothing.

I’m Catholic, ex-Protestant, and my own sympathies are with the Creationists, not because they’re fundamentalists, but because in the long run I think they’ll prove to be right. I’ll admit I became quite fanatical when I first became Christian, but I’m less so now. I’ll also concede some Creationists can be very un-Christian when they meet people with different viewpoints.

If I had to pin my hopes on any one feature, it would be the magnetic decay of the earth. Since it’s been measurable (which means we’ve had the technology to do so), it has been decaying, and appears to have a half life of about 1400 years. Extrapolate backwards at that rate, and earth could be no more than 20,000 years or it would be molten.

I think it’s about 10,000 years old.

However we’ll have to wait to see if the magnetic field does one of these flips, and if so, whether it regenerates its field strength.

The sun’s magnetic field flips about every 11 years, but it doesn’t show much sign of decay, due to the enormous energy source. The earth doesn’t have that luxury.

And I concur with the poster about the Protestant pastor’s qualifications. They are qualified, but it would be comparatively rare to find pastors with science degrees, in the same way we have Jesuits with science degrees, and with the leisure to continue study in their fields. On the other hand, there are plenty of Protestant lay people with science degrees.

 

[dnu]

However, the Protest-ants have to be able to prove the old earth and evolutionary theory from the bible. Once they begin to discredit it and state “that might not be 100% true,” they have way to stop citicizing it and their entire faith falls apart. For the Protest-ant, the bible is either 100% true or nothing.

Many will try to argue that-that isn’t true, but, when asked to prove from the bible that they’re allowed to doubt and re-interpret the bible, they can never do it and their “inerrent, infallible, sole-source of authority” argument crumbles as the only way to justify old earth or acceptance of evolution IS to doubt and/or re-interpret.

Such is the folly of Protestantism.

 

[Philena]

If you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old, you have to completely disregard science, geology, and astronomy.

The Genesis account is not and was never meant to be a scientific explanation of the origins of the earth.

The earth is old. The argument that the earth was made “with an apearance of age” is so silly. Why would God want to fool us?

I think that the immense age of the universe puts me in even more awe of God.

 

[Young_Thinker]

yes,indeed,we have a young earth - the rocks are not as old as some would have us accept in an attempt to prove that the inerrant word of God is not inerrant and man knows better than his creator - the rock layers were not formed one layer on top of the preceding layer as commonly supposed but sideways and all life appeared suddenly and at the same time caused by the biologists’ big bang known as the cambrian explosion.Most dating methods prove a young earth and those that say otherwise are fla\wed,it seems by millions or billions of years - twinc

But if the universe is only several thousand years old, what was God doing that? As for science, the “last” ice age ended about 10,000 years. I, for one, do not believe that dinosaurs, trilobites, saber-toothed tigers and man all coexisted(only man and the cat are thought to have ). As for the most accurate dating methods, radiocarbon dating only goes as far as about 38,000 B.C., but there are obviously other methods. Everything is not relative.

 

[mark_a]

In my past life as a protestant, the preacher always said that the earth is only 6000 years old and only heathens believed otherwise. I just could not buy into that and my questions went unanswered. It is one in a long, long line of teachings that led me to the true Church. Can anyone explain how this can be taught with a straight face. The nearest answer I received was that when God made the earth, He made the triobites and cephalopods already formed in the rocks. So, such evidence means nothing.

I’m always amazed at fundies who insist on a literalist interpretation of the bible except when pointing out the whole Galileo incident.

 

[mjs1987]

The bible makes no mention of how old the earth is and it never intended to. God is outside of time so a 7 day creation is just a human construct to show that God had a purpose and order to how he went about creating the earth. Peter says that to God a day is like a thousand years, and a thousands years like a day. He is not restricted by time because he created time and he lets time go forward.

As far as earth biology is concerned, a lot of it IS based on faith. Most of the numbers for the species in the evolutionary line are extrapolated. They do not have thousands upon thousands of bones and fossils for each species. They simply estimate how many they think there would need to be in order to survive and prosper. There are many questions that can and arent being asked of science because people are too scared to be called anti-science or anti-knowledge. Many scientists get on a high horse because they are very smart and they think they know better than everyone else does and they shouldnt be questioned. It is the lack of questioning scientists with real hard questions that we need to solve. Make them prove their case fully and not pass off theories as fact. Many theories are highly theoretical in science and yet many scientists pass it off as fact because they believe it is true when their facts arent backed up or shared globally by all scientists.

I say this as a believer in evolution and old earth. We are not critical enough of scientists and accept what they say as sheep when they try to make conclusions such as global warming and evolution that effect our lives. Consider this: that climate scientist at East Anglia University says that climate records beyond 150 years are poor and there is no real hard data. If we cannot know what the climate was like in the Middle Ages because of the lack of data, how can we say with a straight face what the earth was like thousands of years earlier and go as far to say how creatures such as the Neanderthal lived. To be honest, how creatures that far in history behaved and acted is pure speculation because we have never seen them behave and we can only guess based on their skeleton size and artifacts that we are not sure how and why they may have used.

 

[aspirant]

I believe the Bible is correct and that the earth is less than 10,000 yrs old.

I believe the Bible is correct and it’s your interpretation that’s flawed.

I’m always amazed at fundies who insist on a literalist interpretation of the bible except when pointing out the whole Galileo incident.

 

[Dokimas]

If you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old, you have to completely disregard science, geology, and astronomy.

The Genesis account is not and was never meant to be a scientific explanation of the origins of the earth.

The earth is old. The argument that the earth was made “with an apearance of age” is so silly. Why would God want to fool us?

I think that the immense age of the universe puts me in even more awe of God.

Not true.​

It’s a silly argument that I highlighted. If God is going to make a tree there must be earth (soil to) grow in. BTW, just because you think it looks old and gets fooled into believing the earth is millions of yrs (or billions) old, isn’t God’s fault nor was He deceiving. How many yrs have people thought the earth was millions of yrs old? Pretty recent in terms of how many yrs humans have been around.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Respectfully, I’d ask how it could be 10,000 years old when radio-carbon dating is a reliable and long-standing method used that can date things as old as 60,000 years old?

I think it’s about 10,000 years old.

However we’ll have to wait to see if the magnetic field does one of these flips, and if so, whether it regenerates its field strength.

The sun’s magnetic field flips about every 11 years, but it doesn’t show much sign of decay, due to the enormous energy source. The earth doesn’t have that luxury.

And I concur with the poster about the Protestant pastor’s qualifications. They are qualified, but it would be comparatively rare to find pastors with science degrees, in the same way we have Jesuits with science degrees, and with the leisure to continue study in their fields. On the other hand, there are plenty of Protestant lay people with science degrees.

 

[edwest2]

If you think the earth is less than 10,000 years old, you have to completely disregard science, geology, and astronomy.

The Genesis account is not and was never meant to be a scientific explanation of the origins of the earth.

The earth is old. The argument that the earth was made “with an apearance of age” is so silly. Why would God want to fool us?

I think that the immense age of the universe puts me in even more awe of God.

The immense age of the universe does not involve awe in the sense that certain political belief systems require this vast age. The Catholic Church teaches that the universe has a finite age.

I was taught that Adam and Eve were made as adults. God was not fooling anyone. As God, He can do things like that. The political pressure to keep proposing long ages has become more important than the actual information. It appears there are grounds to dismiss some of the dating information. No, I’m not saying the earth is 6,000 years old but I am saying I’m seeing dishonesty in the dating figures. There is evidence to suggest the earth is younger than claimed, but it would upset the political scientific process currently going on.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Geocacher]

This is one of my favorite subjects.

I believe that Earth is stuck in Space and Time, but that Heaven is NOT.
The Earth was formed outside of Space and Time, but for creatures on the Earth, it was like Millions of years. Many Near Death Experiencers report of seeing the creation of space, time and Earth, but go back through a forgettting, when coming back to life. Its like the knowledge of how everything came about is like the most Top Secrete File, that can not be seen, till after we die.

I like to think that when the Earth was created outside of space and time, that it’s history was rapidly aged in a short time, in God’s perspective. So the beginnings of this Earth, were to create the oil for our use in these days. All this is speculation, since only those that pasted on from this Earth, to the spirit world know the creation of the Earth.

I am also into Astronomy, and fascinated by how old the Earth appears, but at the same time, think of how the Earth may have been aged in a rapid pace.

I am very fascinated about how the Earth was evolved and its history of dinosaurs.

I neither believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, or billions of years old, but that there was some twisting of space and time.

 

[Nan_S]

My :twocents: on the subject:

I’ve had certain people (including one funadamentalist in particular) say to me that God made the earth look 4.5 billion years old, and then gave us His word saying the earth was actually 6,000 years old, to test us our willingness to believe. The fundamentalist said that God uses this as a “screening” tool because He knows only a few are willing to trust His word over the evidence of human senses.

It took me a little while to think through his defense of the “Young Earth” idea and find an answer which both made sense and was compelling enough to provoke serious discussion:

We know God is All Truth, Completely Consistent, and Completely Trustworthy.

A God who is Truth personified does not deal in lies and use deception to trip us up and test our mettle. The one who uses lies for the purpose of testing our willingness to believe is Satan.

If we believed that God was a liar in some ways, such as creating a universe and an earth which appeared to be of extremely ancient origin according to every measure we could devise, when it was really only 6,000 years old, how could we trust God to be true, or consistent, or trustworthy in anything else? We couldn’t.

That being said, both Genesis and the ancient origin of the earth must be true, and it is our interpretation of Genesis which is flawed.

 

[buffalo]

My :twocents: on the subject:

I’ve had certain people (including one funadamentalist in particular) say to me that God made the earth look 4.5 billion years old, and then gave us His word saying the earth was actually 6,000 years old, to test us our willingness to believe. The fundamentalist said that God uses this as a “screening” tool because He knows only a few are willing to trust His word over the evidence of human senses.

It took me a little while to think through his defense of the “Young Earth” idea and find an answer which both made sense and was compelling enough to provoke serious discussion:

We know God is All Truth, Completely Consistent, and Completely Trustworthy.

A God who is Truth personified does not deal in lies and use deception to trip us up and test our mettle. The one who uses lies for the purpose of testing our willingness to believe is Satan.

If we believed that God was a liar in some ways, such as creating a universe and an earth which appeared to be of extremely ancient origin according to every measure we could devise, when it was really only 6,000 years old, how could we trust God to be true, or consistent, or trustworthy in anything else? We couldn’t.

That being said, both Genesis and the ancient origin of the earth must be true, and it is our interpretation of Genesis which is flawed.

Hold on, not so fast.

Let us look at this more deeply.

God cannot deceive or be deceived. But one has to ask, is God being deceptive by limiting us to 5 senses, 3 dimensions and time?

Genesis 1 is written from God’s perspective. 2 is written from man’s.

Imagine a measuring tape rolled up. We live on the tape. When we look back we see the divisions going backward and forward. God lives outside the tape. When God looks at it He sees it all at once.

 

[JonNC]

=dnu;6314968]However, the Protest-ants have to be able to prove the old earth and evolutionary theory from the bible. Once they begin to discredit it and state “that might not be 100% true,” they have way to stop citicizing it and their entire faith falls apart. For the Protest-ant, the bible is either 100% true or nothing.

Who said? Why do I have to prove old-earth from the Bible? It is 100% true for its intention

Many will try to argue that-that isn’t true, but, when asked to prove from the bible that they’re allowed to doubt and re-interpret the bible, they can never do it and their “inerrent, infallible, sole-source of authority” argument crumbles as the only way to justify old earth or acceptance of evolution IS to doubt and/or re-interpret.

Who is doubting or reinterpreting the Bible? And why must one doubt or reinterpret the Bible to understand that the ancient writers were not offering a scientific explanation, using the scientific method, on the age of the Earth? Now, if I doubt that God created the universe, then I’m redefining scripture. But I certainly don’t view the Bible as the sole-authority on science.

And I’m filled with curiosity: why the improper use of the “-” in the word Protestant?

Jon