Young Earth Creationism

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Dan_Brown_2

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Does the Catholic Church believe in this?

These people claim that the earth is only 6000 years old. They claim that the light from galaxies which are 20,000+ lightyears away are created ‘in transit’.

What is your opinion in regard to this? I think the ideas of these people are crazy, as science has proved to us that the universe is up to 70billion years old.
 
Dan_Brown_2 said:
Does the Catholic Church believe in this?

These people claim that the earth is only 6000 years old. They claim that the light from galaxies which are 20,000+ lightyears away are created ‘in transit’.

What is your opinion in regard to this? I think the ideas of these people are crazy, as science has proved to us that the universe is up to 70billion years old.
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Catholics are not required to believe in a young earth. Go to the CA Home Page and look in the “libraries” section. Lots of tract-length information there on what the Church teaches about a lot of things.
 
Dan_Brown_2 said:
Does the Catholic Church believe in this?

These people claim that the earth is only 6000 years old. They claim that the light from galaxies which are 20,000+ lightyears away are created ‘in transit’.

What is your opinion in regard to this? I think the ideas of these people are crazy, as science has proved to us that the universe is up to 70billion years old.
Click to expand...
The Catholic Church has no official position on this issue. We are free to believe in an old or young earth. Just that however the earth got to where it is today, God did it.
 
This is good:

catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

There probably are catholics who believe in a 6000 year old earth, just as there are catholics who believe the earth to be stationary at the centre of the universe.

We are free to believe it or can believe, along with the vast majority of scientists, in an ancient universe and earth.

I like to consider the young earth (and universe) theory in relation to a 10000 light-year or more away supernova. In the young universe theory we are seeing light from an exploding star that never existed. Hmmm.
 
asteroid said:
This is good:

catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

There probably are catholics who believe in a 6000 year old earth, just as there are catholics who believe the earth to be stationary at the centre of the universe.

We are free to believe it or can believe, along with the vast majority of scientists, in an ancient universe and earth.

I like to consider the young earth (and universe) theory in relation to a 10000 light-year or more away supernova. In the young universe theory we are seeing light from an exploding star that never existed. Hmmm.
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No i think they want to believe that the light from the supernova is created by god in its transit from that place to here, and its only done in the last 10000 years, now why god would do that is beyond me and them, perhaps he is doing it just to make them feel happy 😉
 
Dan_Brown_2 said:
Does the Catholic Church believe in this?

These people claim that the earth is only 6000 years old. They claim that the light from galaxies which are 20,000+ lightyears away are created ‘in transit’.

What is your opinion in regard to this? I think the ideas of these people are crazy, as science has proved to us that the universe is up to 70billion years old.
Click to expand...
70 billion? Where did you get that extraordinary figure from?
 
Dan_Brown_2 said:
space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html

just one source
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Well, you did not support that assertion with your article:
The universe is about 13.7 billion years old. Light reaching us from the earliest known galaxies has been travelling, therefore, for more than 13 billion years. So one might assume that the radius of the universe is 13.7 billion light-years and that the whole shebang is double that, or 27.4 billion light-years wide.
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And that is from your source.

And a large universe is what the inflationary big bang predicts.
 
Dan,

If you read the source carefully you find that it says that the universe is about 14 billion years old but that the point from which a photon arriving now was emitted 14 billion years go is now some 78 billion lightyears away. The difference is subtle, but it is there.

You’ve received some very good responses to your original post. I agree with them.
  • Liberian
 
A 6,000 year old earth seems rather shortsighted to me. Especially if it also implies a 6,000 year old universe. It would suggest that all the stars and galaxies farther away than 6,000 light years are illusory.
 
JimG said:
A 6,000 year old earth seems rather shortsighted to me. Especially if it also implies a 6,000 year old universe. It would suggest that all the stars and galaxies farther away than 6,000 light years are illusory.
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Or that the speed of light has *drastically *slowed since the Fall. That’s just one idea I’ve heard put forward. Take it how you will.
 
Dan_Brown_2 said:
What is your opinion in regard to this? I think the ideas of these people are crazy, as science has proved to us that the universe is up to 70billion years old.
Click to expand...
Are you going to accuse me of being a young-universe creationist 😉 , as I believe the universe is 13.7 billion years old.
 
Science says dead men don’t walk either. And axe heads? They don’t float.

But we’re talking about the supernatural here; there is no explanation in science as we understand it.

In my mind both the secular humanist approach to our beginnings and the more traditional, religious approach to our beginnings are equally valid, as they both give a complete account of events factoring in all the scientific evidence we have available. The difference being though that the former doesn’t jive with my faith, didn’t come from my Church fathers, and seems to lead people from Christ rather than to him. That’s just my ignorant take on it though…
 
I’m inclined to believe in the older Earth hypothesis, but I frankly don’t care either way, and I do not look down on young Earthers as long as they do not insist that theirs is the only orthodox opinion.

An interesting argument was related by the sociologist Robert Nisbet, though I forget who initially came up with it. If one thinks of Creation like a play or a novel, it would not be shocking that the Earth was created in an already-developed state. For example, a novel that opens with a 30-year old protagonist doesn’t have to go through his entire life up until that date. In the same way, it’s possible to God (for Whom all things are possible) to create the Earth in media res.
 
Iambic Pen,

I’ve done a little investigation into the slowing of the speed of light. It appears that the measured velocities have steadily decayed through the decades and centuries; there are articles in the journal Nature asking whether the speed of light was constant, decaying continuously, or sinusoidal.

The apparent decrease in the speed of light stopped in the 1950’s when measurement techniques got so good that the value became known to eight or nine significant figures. Since then it has remained constant. That by itself is sufficient to explain to me why any changes in the speed of light will explain the apparent age of the universe.
  • Liberian
 
Ribozyme,

Why you young-universe creationist! Everybody knows that the universe is 13.8 billion years old!
  • Liberian
 
why do people have to be so ignorant and unwilling to accept the in all probability truth. I would love to be able to send you guys back to the medievil times and see you all possibly argue that the world is flat and that the sun revolves around the earth. Then I could laugh even more than I am now at your assertions. Would you young earth creationists have been bashing people back in the day for saying the earth was round or that we aren’t the center of the universe. Don’t say you would not since you are doing the same thing now with a different topic.
 
Liberian said:
Ribozyme,

Why you young-universe creationist! Everybody knows that the universe is 13.8 billion years old!
  • Liberian
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Lol.

But I was not being scientifically rigorous in my last post. The universe is 13.7 + 0.2 billion years old (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Universe)). One should indicate the factors of uncertainity (which is why in chemistry teachers stress the importance of significant figures.) So it is not 13.8 billion years old, unless you show me a better source than wikipedia.

Everyone? Gee… what about the young-Earth creationists? Do they know that the universe is that old?
 
Dan_Brown_2 said:
Does the Catholic Church believe in this?

These people claim that the earth is only 6000 years old. They claim that the light from galaxies which are 20,000+ lightyears away are created ‘in transit’.

What is your opinion in regard to this? I think the ideas of these people are crazy, as science has proved to us that the universe is up to 70billion years old.
Click to expand...
If you read Genesis the time reference is cosmic. This being said, and taking into account the Einsteins Theory of Relativity (time slows down as you approach the speed of light) an amazing discovery was made.

If you were “on earth” and you watched the Big-bang happen, the first 24-hour of an Earth day would have been 8 billion years; the second 24-hour Earth day would have been 4 billion years, etc. Basically what was happening is that the Absolute time was slowing down according to an decaying exponential.

Add up the six days of creation:

8+4+2+1+.5+.25 = 15.75 Billion Years

What is our current estimate of the universe?

“In a study published today in the journal , a team
universe is between 11.2 billion and 20 billion years old.
Science” source: universe.nasa.gov/press/2003/2003articles/030103_darkenergy_spcom.pdf#search=%22%22NASA%22%20%2B%20%22age%20of%20universe%22%22

Coincedince? Perhaps. But it harmonizes the two theories.
 
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